JOHN OF RUYSBROECK
THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE
THE SPARKLING STONE
THE BOOK OF SUPREME TRUTH
TRANSLATED FROM THE FLEMISH BY
C. A. WYNSCHENK DOM
EDITED
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY
EVELYN UNDERHILL
“In tantum Deus cognoscitur, in quantum amatur”
St. Bernard
CONTENTS
* Introduction
* THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE THE FIRST BOOK
* Prologue
* I. Of the Active Life
* II. Showing how we shall consider the Coming of Christ in Three Ways
* III. Of Humility
* IV. Of Charity
* V. Of Patient Endurance
* VI. Of the Second Coming of Christ
* VII. Of the Blessed Sacraments
* VIII. Of the Third Coming of Christ
* IX. Showing what Christ will do in the Day of Doom
* X. Of the Five Kinds of Men who shall appear at the Judgment
* XI. Of a Spiritual Going Out with all Virtues
* XII. How Humility is the Foundation of all other Virtues
* XIII. Of Obedience
* XIV. Of the Renunciation of Self-Will
* XV. Of Patience
* XVI. Of Meekness
* XVII. Of Kindliness
* XVIII. Of Compassion
* XIX. Of Generosity
* XX. Of Zeal and Diligence
* XXI. Of Temperance and Sobriety
* XXII. Of Purity
* XXIII. Of Three Enemies to be overcome by Righteousness
* XXIV. Of the Kingdom of the Soul
* XXV. Of a Spiritual Meeting of God and Ourselves
* XXVI. Of the desire to know the Bridegroom in His Nature
* THE SECOND BOOK
* Prologue
* I. How we achieve Supernatural Sight in our Inward Workings
* II. Of a Three-fold Unity which is in us by Nature
* III. Of the Inflow of the Grace of God into our Spirit
* IV. Showing how we should found our Inward Life on a Freedom from Images
* V. Of a Three-fold Coming of our Lord in the Inward Man
* VI. Of the Second Coming of our Lord in the Inward Man
* VII. Of the Third Coming of our Lord
* VIII. How the First Coming has Four Degrees
* IX. Of Unity of Heart
* X. Of Inwardness
* XI. Of Sensible Love
* XII. Of Devotion
* XIII. Of Gratitude
* XIV. Of Two Griefs which arise from Inward Gratitude
* XV. A Similitude how we should perform the First Degree of our Inward
Exercise
* XVI. Another Similitude concerning the same Exercise
* XVII. Of the Second Degree of our Inward Exercise, which increases
Inwardness by Humility
* XVIII. Of the Pure Delight of the Heart and the Sensible Powers
* XIX. Of Spiritual Inebriation
* XX. What may hinder a Man in this Inebriation
* XXI. A Similitude how a Man should act and bear himself in this case
* XXII. Of the Third Degree of the Spiritual Coming of Christ
* XXIII. Of the Pain and Restlessness of Love
* XXIV. Of Ecstacies and Divine Revelations
* XXV. An Example showing how one is hindered in this Exercise
* XXVI. Another Example
* XXVII. A Parable of the Ant
* XXVIII. Of the Fourth Degree of the Coming of Christ
* XXIX. Showing what the Forsaken Man should do
* XXX. A Parable: How one may be hindered in this Fourth Degree
* XXXI. Of another Hindrance
* XXXII. Of Four Kinds of Fever wherewith a Man may be Tormented
* XXXIII. Showing how these Four Degrees in their Perfection are Found in
Christ
* XXXIV. Showing how a Man should Live if he would be Enlightened
* XXXV. Of the Second Coming of Christ, or, the Fountain with Three Rills
* XXXVI. The First Rill adorns the Memory
* XXXVII. The Second Rill enlightens the Understanding
* XXXVIII. The Third Rill establishes the Will to every Perfection
* XXXIX. Showing how the Established Man shall go out in Four Ways
* XL. He shall go out towards God and towards all Saints
* XLI. He shall go out towards all Sinners
* XLII. He shall go out towards his Friends in Purgatory
* XLIII. He shall go out towards himself and towards all Good Men
* XLIV. Showing how we may recognise those Men who fail in Charity to all
* XLV. How Christ was, is, and ever will be the Lover of all
* XLVI. Reproving all those who live on Spiritual Goods in an Inordinate
Manner
* XLVII. Showing how Christ has given Himself to all in common in the
Sacrament of the Altar
* XLVIII. Of the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Trinity of the Persons
* XLIX. Showing how God possesses and moves the Soul both in a Natural and
a Supernatural way
* L. Showing how a Man should be adorned if he is to receive the most
Inward Exercise
* LI. Of the Third Coming of Christ
* LII. Showing how the Spirit goes out through the Divine Stirring
* LIII. Of an Eternal Hunger for God
* LIV. Of a Loving Strife between the Spirit of God and our Spirit
* LV. Of the Fruitful Works of the Spirit, the which are Eternal
* LVI. Showing the way in which we shall meet God in a Ghostly Manner both
with and without Means
* LVII. Of the Essential Meeting with God without Means in the Nakedness
of our Nature
* LVIII. Showing how one is like unto God through Grace and unlike unto
God through Mortal Sin
* LIX. Showing how one possesses God in Union and Rest, above all likeness
through Grace
* LX. Showing how we have need of the Grace of God, which makes us like
unto God and leads us to God without Means
* LXI. Of how God and our Spirit visit each other in the Unity and in the
Likeness
* LXII. Showing how we should go out to meet God in all our Works
* LXIII. Of the ordering of all the Virtues through the Seven Gifts of the
Holy Ghost
* LXIV. Of the Highest Degree of the most Interior Life
* LXV. Of Three Kinds of most Inward Practices
* LXVI. Showing how some Men live contrary to these Exercises
* LXVII. Of another kind of Perverted Men
* THE THIRD BOOK
* I. Showing the Three Ways by which one enters into the God-Seeing Life
* II. How the Eternal Birth of God is renewed without interruption in the
nobility of the Spirit
* III. How our Spirit is called to go out in Contemplation and Fruition
* IV. Of a Divine Meeting which takes place in the Hiddenness of our
Spirit
* THE SPARKLING STONE
* Prologue
* I. Through Three Things a Man becomes Good
* II. Through Three Things a Man becomes Inward
* III Through Three Things a Man becomes God-Seeing
* IV. Of the Sparkling Stone, and of the New Name written in the Book of
the Secrets of God
* V. Of the works which God works in all in common, and of Five Kinds of
Sinners
* VI. Of the difference between the Hirelings and the Faithful Servants of
God
* VII. Of the difference between the Faithful Servants and the Secret
Friends of God
* VIII. Of the difference between the Secret Friends and the Hidden Sons
of God
* IX. How we may become Hidden Sons of God, and attain to the God-Seeing
Life
* X. How we, though One with God, must eternally remain Other than God
* XI. Of the great difference between the Brightness of the Saints and the
Highest Brightness to which we can attain in this Life
* XII. Of the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Thabor
* XIII. How we ought to have Fruition of God
* XIV. Of that Common Life which comes from the Contemplation and Fruition
of God
* THE BOOK OF SUPREME TRUTH
* Prologue
* I. Wherefore this Book was Written
* II. A short repetition of all the Highest Teachings written by the
Author
* III. Of the Union through Means
* IV. Of the Men who practise a False Vacancy
* V. Of the Union without Means
* VI. Of Heavenly Weal and Hellish Woe
* VII. Showing wherefore all Good Men do not attain to the Unmediated
Union with God
* VIII. Showing how the Inward Man should exercise himself, that he may be
united with God without Means
* IX. Of the Inward Working of God’s Grace
* X. Of the Mutual Contentment of the Divine Persons, and the Mutual
Contentment between God and Good Men
* XI. How Good Men in their Contemplation have the Love of God before
them, and how they are lifted up into God
* XII. Of the Highest Union, without Difference or Distinction
* XIII. Of the Three-fold Prayer of Christ, that we might be one with God
* XIV. Here the Author declares that he submits all that he has written to
the judgment of Holy Church
* Notes
_________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION
Jan van Ruysbroeck—three of whose most important works are here for the
first time presented to English readers—is the greatest of the Flemish
mystics, and must take high rank in any list of Christian contemplatives and
saints. He was born in 1273, at the little village of Ruysbroeck or
Ruusbroeck between Brussels and Hal, from which he takes his name; and spent
his whole life within his native province of Brabant. At eleven years old,
he is said to have run away from home and found his way to Brussels; where
he was received by his uncle Jan Hinckaert, a canon of the Cathedral of St
Gudule. Hinckaert, who was a man of great piety, lived with another devout
priest named Francis van Coudenberg in the most austere fashion; entirely
devoted to prayer and good works. The two ecclesiastics brought the boy up,
and gave him a religious education, which evidently included considerable
training in theology and philosophy: subjects for which he is said to have
shown, even in boyhood, an astonishing aptitude. In 1317 he took orders, and
obtained through his uncle’s influence a prebend’s stall in St Gudule; a
position which he occupied for twenty-six years.
During youth and early middle-age, then, Ruysbroeck lived in Brussels,
fulfilling the ordinary duties of a cathedral chaplain: and here some of his
earlier works may have been written. Here no doubt he developed that shrewd
insight into human character to which his books bear witness; and here
gained his experience of those “false mystics” and self-sufficient quietists
so vividly described and sternly condemned in the second book of The
Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, in The Book of Truth, and other places.
In the early fourteenth century a number of heretical sects, of which the
Brethren of the Free Spirit were typical, flourished in the Low Countries.
Basing their doctrine on a pantheistic and non-Christian conception of the
Godhead, they proclaimed the “divinity of man,” and preached a quietism of
the most soul-destroying kind, together with an emancipation from the
fetters of law and custom which often resulted in actual immorality. [1] As
Ruysbroeck grew in knowledge of the true contemplative life, the dangers
attending on its perversion became ever more clear to him: and he entered
upon that vigorous campaign against the heretical quietists which was the
chief outward event of his Brussels period.
As to his spiritual development during these years, we can have no certain
knowledge: since none of his works are exactly dated, and the order in which
they should be arranged is a matter of inference. But it is inherently
probable that he was experiencing the early stages of that mysterious growth
of the soul which he describes so exactly in the first two books of The
Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage: the hard self-discipline, the
enlightenment, raptures, and derelictions, of the “active” and “interior”
life. At this period, he had made little impression on his contemporaries.
The Augustinian canon Pomerius, who had known in their old age some of
Ruysbroeck’s friends and followers, and who wrote his Life [2] in the year
1420, describes him as a simple, quiet, rather shabby-looking person, who
“went about the streets of Brussels with his mind lifted up into God.” Yet
it is certain that great force of character, much shrewd common sense, and
remarkable intellectual qualities lay behind this meek appearance. We know
how greatly he disliked “singular conduct” in those who had given themselves
to the spiritual life. They should be, he thought, like “other good men”;
[3] and this ideal found expression in his own life. A devout and orthodox
Catholic, well read in scholastic theology and philosophy, on the mental and
social side at least, he was a thorough man of his time; apparently
accepting without criticism its institutions and ideas. Many passages in his
works indicate this: for instance, his constant and unquestioning use of the
categories of mediaeval psychology, or his quiet assumption [4] that
“putting to the torture” is part of the business of a righteous judge. But
on the spiritual side his period influenced him little. There, his concern
was with truths which lie, as he says, “outside Time” in the Eternal Now;
and when he is trying to interpret these to us the Middle Ages and their
limitations fall away. Then we catch fragments which Plato or Plotinus on
one hand, Hegel on the other, might recognise as the reports of one who had
known and experienced the Reality for which they sought. “My words,” said
Ruysbroeck, “are strange, but those who love will understand”: and this
indeed is true, for he possessed in an extraordinary degree the power—which
so many great mystics have lacked—of giving verbal and artistic expression
to his soaring intuitions of Eternity.
In 1343, when he was fifty years old, the growing sense of contrast between
those intuitions and the religious formalism and unreality of the cathedral
life, the distracting bustle of the town, reached a point at which it seems
to have become unendurable to him. Together with Hinckaert and
Coudenberg—both now old men—he left Brussels for ever; all three intending
to settle in some lonely country place, where they could devote themselves
to the life of prayer and contemplation. They were given the old hermitage
of Groenendael, or the Green Valley, in the forest of Soignes outside
Brussels. There they were presently joined by disciples, and formed a small
community, which was eventually placed under the rule of the Augustinian
canons. Coudenberg became the provost and Ruysbroeck the prior; and under
their government the priory of Groenendael soon became known as the home of
a special holiness.
We shall probably be right if we identify his thirty-eight years, sojourn in
the forest with the “God-seeing” stage of Ruysbroeck’s mystical life. [5]
Here without doubt all his greatest works were written. The Adornment of the
Spiritual Marriage must have been composed soon after his retreat from
Brussels, for we know that in 1350 he sent a copy of it to the group of
Rhenish mystics who called themselves the Friends of God. The Sparkling
Stone and The Book of Truth—both written at the request of friends, to
explain difficult points in his earlier books—belong to a later date. We
need not feel surprised that the full flowering of his genius should
coincide with his abandonment of the world. In one form or another such
abandonment has been found imperative by all the great explorers of
Eternity; whose inward quest of the One nearly always entails some
withdrawal from the multiplicity of things. But beyond this, there was in
Ruysbroeck’s mysticism—at once so intimate in its feeling so vast in its
reach—a deeply poetic strain. The silence and growing beauty of the forest
ministered to this: and many passages in his books show how easily he
discovered intimations of divinity through the loving contemplation of
natural things. A beautiful tradition tells us that he would go out alone
into the woods when he felt that the inspiration of God was upon him; and
there, sitting under his favourite tree, would write as the Holy Ghost
dictated. The brethren used to declare that once, having been absent many
hours from the priory, he was at last found in this place, rapt in ecstacy
and surrounded by a brilliant aura of divine light—a legend which closely
resembles many similar stories in the lives of the saints.
Such ecstatic absorption in God, however, formed only one side of
Ruysbroeck’s religious life. True to his own doctrine of the “balanced
career” of action and contemplation as the ideal of the Christian soul [6]
his rapturous ascents towards Divine Reality were compensated by the eager
and loving interest with which he turned towards the world of men. In the
daily life of the priory he sought perpetually for opportunities of service,
especially those of the most menial kind. As time passed, and his great
mystical gifts became known, many disciples came to him: amongst them Gerard
Groot, afterwards the founder of the Brothers of the Common Life and hence
spiritual ancestor of Thomas ˆ Kempis. To all these he gave patient help and
robust advice; initiating them, so far as it was possible, into the secrets
of the true spiritual life, and ruthlessly exposing the pious pretensions of
those who sought only a reputation for sanctity. It is clear even from his
writings that he possessed to a remarkable degree the “gift of the
discernment of spirits”—in other words, that his shrewd judgment of humanity
seldom failed him. All know the story of the two priests, who came from
Paris to ask his opinion of their spiritual state: merely to receive the
truthful but disconcerting reply, “You are as holy as you wish to be!”
The thirty-eight years which Ruysbroeck passed at Groenendael were, from the
point of view of the earthly biographer, almost devoid of incident. True, he
formed many friendships with the most spiritual men of his time, and seems
occasionally to have left his priory in order to visit them. We possess a
charming account of one such visit; that to Gerard Naghel, the Prior of
Hérines, at whose suggestion The Book of Truth was written. “His peaceful
and joyful countenance, his humble good-humoured speech,” says Gerard, made
him loved by all with whom he came into contact: a sentence which brings to
mind Ruysbroeck’s own picture of those happy men who walk in the way of
love.
“Those who follow the way of love
Are the richest of all men living:
They are bold, frank, and fearless,
They have neither travail nor care,
For the Holy Ghost bears all their burdens.
They seek no outward seeming,
They desire nought that is esteemed of men,
They affect not singular conduct,
They would be like other good men.” [7]
Further, he saw during these years the rapid growth of the community—now
swiftly becoming one of the chief centres of spiritual life in the Low
Countries—and the wide dissemination of his own works. He even lived to see
certain passages in those works criticised, as supporting a pantheistic and
heretical view of the union of the soul with God. The Book of Truth was
written to refute this accusation. But the true events of these years took
place for him in that supernal world of high contemplation which it was his
special province to disclose to his fellow-men. There his real life was
fixed. There his loving ardour was for ever young. Thither he drew those
treasures of mystical knowledge which he is said to have poured forth to his
brethren in long ecstatic discourses when the Spirit impelled him to speak:
for he never taught or spoke unless he felt himself inspired thereto by God.
When old age came upon him, though his ghostly vision never lost its
keenness his earthly eyes grew dim: and his later works were dictated, when
the Spirit moved him, to one of the younger brothers of the house. At
eighty-eight years of age his strength failed: and after a short illness,
which never clouded the radiance of his spirit, he died upon December 2nd,
1381.
II
Ruysbroeck wrote all his works in the dialect of his native province of
Brabant: which stands in much the same relation to modern Flemish as
Chaucer’s English stands to our own speech. Eleven of these works have come
down to us in various MS. collections; and all of them, with one or two
others of doubtful authenticity, are included in the great standard Latin
translation made in the sixteenth century by the Carthusian monk Laurentius
Surius. [8]
The authentic writings are these:
1. The Spiritual Tabernacle: a long symbolic treatise on the tabernacle of
the Israelites, considered as a type of the spiritual life.
2. The Twelve Points of True Faith: a short mystical interpretation of the
Creed.
3. The Book of the Four Temptations: an oblique attack on false mystics.
These are probably early works.
4. The Kingdom of God’s Lovers.
5. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage.
Two elaborate and orderly treatises on the threefold life and development of
the soul, which probably belong to the first years at Groenendael.
6. The Mirror of Eternal Salvation: written before 1359.
7. The Seven Cloisters: written before 1363.
8. The Seven Degrees of Love: written before 1372.
This group of works, forming a graduated instruction on the ascetic and
mystical life, seems to have been written for Dame Margaret Van Meerbeke, a
nun in the Convent of Poor Clares at Brussels.
9. The Book of the Sparkling Stone.
10. The Book of Supreme Truth.
11. The Twelve Béguines.
These three books, the substance of which is now accessible to English
readers, [9] contain the finest fruit of Ruysbroeck’s genius. The Twelve
Béguines is partly written in the rough rhymed verse which he uses in many
parts of The Kingdom of God’s Lovers and other places; as if at times his
ecstatic apprehensions presented themselves to the surface mind in a
rhythmic form and “prayer into song was turned.” There is a short example of
this in The Book of Truth. Such verse, however, though its uncouth
strangeness gives to it an impressive quality, is a far less successful
medium for the expression of his subtle mystical perceptions than the
vigorous prose style of his best passages; for instance, the wonderful ninth
chapter of The Sparkling Stone. [10]
When we come to examine the character of these mystical perceptions, we find
that Ruysbroeck was one of the few mystics who have known how to make full
use of a strong and disciplined intellect, without ever permitting it to
encroach on the proper domain of spiritual intuition. An orderly and
reasoned view of the universe is the ground plan upon which the results of
those intuitions are set out: yet we are never allowed to forget the merely
provisional character of the best intellectual concepts where we are dealing
with ultimate truth. Ultimate truth, he says, is not accessible to the human
reason: “the What-ness of God” we can never know. [11] Yet this need not
discourage us from exploring, and describing as well as we can, those rich
regions of approximate truth and life-giving experience which await us
beyond the ramparts of the sensual world. The intellectual ideas and symbols
which he uses most often are taken to a large extent from the Bible and the
Liturgy, and the works of his great predecessors and contemporaries; and
conform to the main lines of the Christian mystical tradition. St Paul and
St Augustine, in particular, have influenced his thought. The notion
popularised by M. Maeterlinck, that Ruysbroeck was an “ignorant monk” who
became in his ecstacies a profound philosopher, is contradicted by the
reminiscences of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, the many quotations from
Dionysius the Areopagite, St Augustine, Richard of St Victor, St Bernard,
and other mystical authors, which we find in his works. Indeed, only those
familiar with these great seers and thinkers are in a position to recognise
the sources and unravel the meaning of his more difficult passages. He was
in fact almost as well equipped on the intellectual as on the contemplative
side: and hence was enabled to interpret to others, in language with which
all educated Christians in his day were more or less familiar, something at
least of the adventures of his spirit in the fathomless Ocean of God.
Those intellectual concepts, however, of which he availed himself, are
constantly used by him in an original way: and always as a means of
expressing the results of direct personal inspiration and experience.
Particularly characteristic is the living quality with which he invests
theological formulae that for us have become fixed and sterile. As Dante,
without deviating from the narrow path of scholastic philosophy, brings us
at last into the presence of “that Eternal Light which loves and smiles,”
[12] so Ruysbroeck leads us back by way of the most orthodox Trinitarian
doctrine to the very heart of Reality: the eternal and abysmal Fountain of
life-giving life.
In the three books which are now translated we shall find all his most
characteristic ideas, though here it is only possible to touch upon a few of
them. [13] For Ruysbroeck, as for St Augustine, Reality is both Being and
Becoming: one-fold and changeless in essence, active and diverse in
expression—a dualism aptly represented by the theological dogma of the
Trinity in Unity. So too man, the image of God, is a unity who manifests
himself in diversity; “made trinity, like to the unmade Blessed Trinity,” as
our own mystic Julian of Norwich has it. [14] The ultimate truth is the
Godhead: the Divine Unity of religion, the Absolute of philosophy. It is
Simple, not with the simplicity of negation but with the simplicity of
complete affirmation: gathering up into its unity all the rich complexities
of power, wisdom, and love. In its essence it is “dark,” “naked,”
“wayless”; inaccessible to all the processes of thought. Yet it is alive
through and through; the eternal “lifegiving ground” from which all comes.
The ideas of “Fatherhood”, and “Sonhood” represent its quickening
fruitfulness; [15] the Holy Ghost is the name of the Divine energy and love
which pours forth into the created world, and thence, like a strong
ebb-tide, draws all things back into their Origin. [16] Though the soul
plunged in God, “sunk in His unity,” seems to itself to experience a
profound rest and stillness, yet it is really surrendered to the movement of
this mighty power: for “God is an ocean that ebbs and flows.”
The ideas, then, of movement, effort, and growth are central for
Ruysbroeck’s thought. Again and again we are impressed by his almost modern
sense of life and action as the substance of the real: his freedom from
merely static conceptions. Therefore we find that the theme of all his more
important books is the growth and development of the soul: the forms in
which God’s energy plays upon it, the forms which should be taken by its
response. The goal of this development is the unified state of “pure
simplicity” in which it is able to “lose itself in the Fathomless Love” and
enter into the complete and beatific enjoyment, possession, or use of
God—for all these meanings are included in the word ghebruken, usually
translated “fruition,” which is his favourite term for the consummation of
the mystical life. [17]
In The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage this growth is divided into the
three stages of the Active, Interior, and Superessential Life: called in The
Sparkling Stone by the old names of the state of Servant, Friend, and Son.
Man, we know, has a natural, active life; the only one that he usually
recognises. This he may “adorn with the virtues” and make well-pleasing to
God (Book I.). But beyond this he has a spiritual or “interior” life, which
is susceptible of grace, the Divine energy and love; and by this can be
remodelled in accordance with its true pattern or archetype, the Spirit of
Christ (Book II.). Beyond this, again, he has a superessential or
“God-seeing life,” in virtue of the spark of Divine life implanted in him.
By the union of his powers of reason will and feeling with this spark—a
welding of the several elements of his being into unity—he may enter into
his highest life; the dual and God-like existence of fruition in God and
work for God, alternate action and rest (Book III.). The correspondences of
the active life are with that moral order which we recognise as binding on
all men of good will. Those of the interior life are with the experiences
which we usually recognise as religious and spiritual. But the
correspondences of the superessential life are with a plane of being which
lies beyond thought, and has, so far as our intellectual perceptions go, no
condition. It is a wayless state, “above reason, not without reason”; [18]
dark with excess of light. This state is the Being of God; but for us it is
“beyond being.”
The First Book, then, is almost wholly concerned with the development of the
Christian character: the only solid and enduring foundation of the mystical
life. It treats of the virtues which adorn our human nature and make it
ready for the coming of the Spirit of Christ; and of the primary importance
of intention, the stretching out of the loving will toward God, “having Him
in mind” in all things. “Mean only God,” said the old English mystics. So
for Ruysbroeck meyninghe en minnen—will and love—sum up the obligations of
the soul at this stage of its growth, and prepare it for the greater
experiences of the interior life. Though he never uses the traditional
formula of the Mystic Way, we may regard this active life as more or less
equivalent to the Way of Purgation. The same stage is treated in the 1st and
6th chapters of The Sparkling Stone and the 3rd chapter of The Book of
Truth.
The Second Book goes on from moral training to spiritual training, and
includes all that ascetic writers mean by the “Illuminative Way.” It deals
with those “ghostly exercises,” the deliberate responses of the soul to the
invitation of God, which form the first degrees of our interior life, and
with the dawning of the true mystical consciousness. It falls into three
chief divisions, treating of three ways in which the Spirit of God comes
into our inner man (caps. 5, 6, and 7).
In the first division (caps. 8-32) Ruysbroeck treats of the action of grace
on the “lower powers,” or sense life. In the allegory of the Seasons, he
describes the normal development of the illuminated life in its emotional
aspect: its joys and ardours, reactions and despairs. The Holy Ghost
“hunting the spirit of man” (cap. 3) has seized and transfigured those
“desirous, affective and irascible” powers of the soul which, according to
the doctrine of medieval psychology, make up natural life of normal men.
[19]
In the second division (caps. 35-38) this process is extended to the “higher
powers” of the soul: the memory or mind, the understanding, and the will.
The experience of God is, for these higher powers, an experience of fresh
enlightenment and fresh ardour; in Ruysbroeck’s favourite imagery, of light
and fire. Grace, which dwells like a living fountain at the heart of our
personality—the “unity of the spirit”—thence pours forth into each faculty
in three streams of radiance: claerheit, a word expressive at once of
pervading brightness and limpid clearness, which occurs on almost every page
of his writings. The sense of this supernal clarity, veritably
experienced—a viva luce, a quickening light, of which we become aware when
we open the soul’s eyes—is found in nearly every mystical writer from the
time of St John, and probably originates in that consciousness of enhanced
lucidity which frequently accompanies spiritual exaltation. It was
crystallised by the schoolmen in the doctrine of the lumen gloriae—the
Divine light which transfigures the soul and makes it like to God [20] —and
much of Ruysbroeck’s work is really a poetic elaboration of this idea. As a
“simple light” this Radiance now frees the mind from the teasing complexity
of distracting images: as a “spreading light” it illuminates the
understanding: as a burning flame, it enkindles the will. The self thus
becomes capable of the first form of contemplation, adherence to God by
means of the purified reason and will: responding to the “loving
drawing-nigh” of God—dat minlike neyghen Gods—with an ardent outstretching
of himself towards that seeking and compelling power.
The powers of the soul, then, in the second stage of illumination, become
inundated by the divine claerheit. It “drenches them”; and the result of
this is seen in the state of perfect charity to which the self now attains:
the condition of equable outflowing love to God and all manner of men (caps.
39-43). In the third and highest stage (caps. 49-65), we pass beyond the
enhancement and enlightenment of the separate powers of our nature to the
“essential being” of the self: that unity of the spirit of which Ruysbroeck
is always speaking, and wherefrom the powers proceed, as the Divine Persons
proceed from the Unity of God. [21] Whether our mental and emotional powers
as such participate in the spiritual life, is for him a secondary
consideration. They may do so, if they be wholly surrendered to God. But our
true union with Him takes place in the abysmal deeps of our being—our
“ground”—and ever abides there: for here our life, as it were, buds out from
the Divine life, and here God dwells eternally “according to His essence.”
If we learn to enter within, passing beyond the powers to the unity of the
spirit, we become conscious of this. [22] There we experience His mysterious
touch and stirrings; feel and respond to the thrust and invitation of His
love, as He drives each created spirit forth to work His will, and draws it
home again towards His heart. There, outside Time, the Eternal Birth takes
place (caps. 57-61).
As a result of this practice in introversion, this simplification of
consciousness, the self now first becomes capable of the second form of
contemplation, described in The Twelve Béguines as
“A knowing which is in no wise;
For ever abiding above the reason.” [23]
and enters upon that profound yet simple communion with God which Ruysbroeck
calls the most inward of all exercises. For this his favourite image is that
of feeding: the soul tastes God (cap. 65), eats, devours, assimilates Him,
and in her turn is eaten and consumed [24] —language which probably reflects
his great personal devotion to the Eucharist. With this mystical savouring
and feeding upon Reality, the self reaches the term of the interior life,
and the full stature of that “secret friend of God” described with such
marvellous subtlety in the 8th chapter of The Sparkling Stone.
It is at this point that the dangers of a false mysticism make themselves
felt. Here, then, Ruysbroeck enters upon a vigorous and acute criticism of
Quietism (caps. 66-67): especially valuable to us at the present day, when
so many irresponsible apostles of “new mysticism” are recommending voluntary
passivity of this type as a substitute for the stern discipline and
perpetual willed effort involved in the Christian science of prayer.
Ruysbroeck describes the interior blankness and silence of the quietist as a
psychic trick: a deliberate sinking down into the subconscious—the subsoil
of human nature—where it is true that the Divine Life dwells and supports
our created life, but where we are below instead of above the levels of
normal consciousness. Here, indeed, the soul experiences a sensation of rest
and peace: but it is merely resting in its own emptiness, a false repose
which demands no exercise of virtue, no tension of the will, and is a
caricature of the active and loving surrender taught by the Christian
saints. The true emptiness and idleness of which Ruysbroeck speaks as an
essential preparation of the contemplative state, is a condition of meek and
passive attentiveness to God, which excludes consciousness of the ordinary
objects of perception and thought; sweeps and garnishes the interior castle.
Here the virtue is not in the emptiness and idleness, but in the humble and
eager yielding of ourselves. Although man cannot by his own effort reach
God, yet without such deliberate loving effort we shall never possess Him.
[25]
Beyond even the highest point of this interior life, in which the
contemplative feels himself to be living “in God,” [26] is that transfigured
or deified life, as the Platonic mystics named it, which Ruysbroeck calls
overwesen—superessential—the life of the “God-seeing man” (Book III).
Whereas in the interior life we may be said to re-discover the lost
inheritance of our spirit, in this life there is a genuine transcendence, a
passing beyond that spirit’s created being: for the Being of God, in which
this consummation is found, is “more than being” to us. It abides beyond all
the concepts of reason, beyond anything that we can name or describe,
outside Time, in the bosom of Divine Reality: that deep Quiet of the Godhead
which cannot be moved. Those who ascend thereto have passed from the state
of “secret friends” to that of the “hidden sons” of God, and completed the
soul’s journey to its home. [27] Then they find themselves, so far as their
separate consciousness persists, in a place that is placeless and a way that
is wayless: in the abysmal Onwise of God, a word for which we have no exact
equivalent, but which embodies one of Ruysbroeck’s most important
conceptions, and is the occasion of some of his most mysterious utterances.
It represents that world of spiritual reality which is beyond all attributes
and conditions; which is neither This nor That, which is “in no wise”—the
Absolute wherein all ways and modes of being, all wise, are swallowed up,
and all our finite perceptions die into ignorance and darkness (cap. 4).
[28]
“The splendour of That which is in no wise is as a fair mirror
Wherein shines the everlasting light of God:
It has no attributes,
And in it all the activities of reason fail.
It is not God
But it is the light whereby we see Him:
Those who walk in the divine light thereof
Discover in themselves the Unwalled.” [29]
Seen from the synthetic and spiritual point of view, this supernal world of
experience is the Essential Unity, wherein the richness of Eternal Life
consists, and where the surrendered soul enjoys the peaceful fruition of
God. But seen from the analytic and intellectual point of view it is the
Essential Nudity, the “nought” or “divine dark” of Dionysius the Areopagite:
for it has been stripped of every character of which we can think. [30] Here
the mystic feels himself, as regards his essential being, to be poured out
into God, melted and merged in Him as a river in the sea: and, as regards
his own separate consciousness, apprehends Him in one simple act of absorbed
attention “seeing and staring” with wide-open eyes. It is in this one act,
sometimes felt by us as a passing beyond ourselves, sometimes as a fixed
ecstatic vision, “beholding that which we are, and becoming that which we
behold” that the self at last knows itself to be one life and one spirit
with God. [31]
The mystic has now entered into union with the three wise, the three modes
or ways, under which Divine Love imparts itself in the spirit of man:
characteristically distinguished by Ruysbroeck as three forms of movement.
First this energetic love pours itself out from the Godhead into us as
grace: and we, in receiving it and making it ours by our virtues and good
works, are united to God “through means.” This is the function of the active
life harmonising man’s work with God’s work. Then, as a compelling tide, it
draws us within its own flood back towards God. This is the union “without
means”’ wherein we are wholly surrendered to His love: it is the proper
condition of the interior life. But when we have reached the superessential
life, and seem to our own feeling to be lost in the Darkness, burned up in
the Brightness, and sunk in the Eternal Stillness of God—that “dark silence
where all lovers lose themselves,” [32] —then the circle is complete. We are
made part of His divine fruition or “content the eternal satisfaction and
eternal activity of Perfect Love; achieving thus the “union without
distinction,” though not union without “otherness.” [33] Henceforward we can
participate in God’s dual life of rest and work, transcendent fruition and
immanent fruitfulness: abiding in restful possession of Him, yet perpetually
sent down from the heights to serve the whole world. [34]
The final state of the Christian mystic, then, is not annihilation in the
Absolute. It is a condition wherein we dwell wholly in God, one life and
truth with Him; yet still “feel God and ourselves,” as the lover feels his
beloved, in a perfect union which depends for its joy on an invincible
otherness. The soul, transfused and transfigured by the Divine Love as
molten iron is by the fire, becomes, it is true, “one simple blessedness
with God” [35] yet ever retains its individuality: one with God beyond
itself, yet other than God within itself. [36] The “deified man” is fully
human still, but spiritualised through and through; not by the destruction
of his personality, but by the taking up of his manhood into God. There he
finds, not a static beatitude, but a Height, a Depth, a Breadth of which he
is made part, yet to which he can never attain: for the creature, even at
its highest, remains finite, and is conscious that Infinity perpetually
eludes its grasp and leads it on. So heaven itself is discovered to be no
mere passive fulfillment, but rather a forward-moving life: [37] an ever new
loving and tasting, new exploring and enjoying of the Infinite Fulness of
God, that inexhaustible Object of our knowledge and delight. It is the
eternal voyage of the adventurous soul on the vast and stormy sea of the
Divine.
EVELYN UNDERHILL
_________________________________________________________________
[1] Cf. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, bk. ii. caps. 66-67, and
The Book of Truth, cap. 4.
[2] H. Pomerius, De Origine Monasterii Viridisvallis una cum Vitis Joannis
Rusbrochii (Analecta Bollandiana, vol. iv., Brussels, 1885).
[3] The Twelve Béguines, cap. 2. Vide infra, p. xvii.
[4] The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, bk. i. cap. 24.
[5] Cf. The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, bk. iii., and The Sparkling
Stone, caps. 3 and 9.
[6] The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, bk. ii. caps. 62 and 63. Cf.
The Sparkling Stone, cap. 14.
[7] The Twelve Béguines, cap. 2.
[8] L. Surius, D. Joannis Rusbrockii Opera Omnia, Cologne, 1552.
[9] The first and finest part of The Twelve Béguines, translated from the
Flemish by John Francis, was published by J. M. Watkins in 1913.
[10] This he evidently came to realise himself. Cf. the end of the 8th
chapter of The Twelve Béguines, “Now I must cease from my rhyming, that I
may show clearly the way of contemplation.”
[11] The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, bk. i. cap. 21. Compare The
Sparkling Stone, cap. 9.
[12] Par. xxxiii. 124.
[13] The student will find a fuller analysis in my monograph Ruysbroeck
(Quest Series, 1915).
[14] The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, bk. ii. cap. 2.
[15] The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, bk. iii. cap. 3; and The Book
of Truth, cap. 10.
[16] The Sparkling Stone, caps. 3 and 10.
[17] Cf. The Twelve Béguines, cap. 16.
[18] The Twelve Béguines, cap. 8.
[19] Cf. The Book of Truth, cap. 9.
[20] Cf. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, i., q. 12, a. 5.
[21] The Book of Truth, cap. 11.
[22] Ibid., cap. 8.
[23] The Twelve Béguines, cap. 8.
[24] The Sparkling Stone, caps. 9, 10 and 11. Compare The Twelve Béguines,
caps. 5 and 15.
[25] The Sparkling Stone, cap. 9.
[26] Ibid., cap. 10.
[27] Cf. The Sparkling Stone, caps. 8, 9, 10 and 13; and The Book of Truth,
caps. 10, 11 and 12.
[28] The Sparkling Stone, cap. 13.
[29] The Twelve Béguines, cap. 8.
[30] The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, bk. iii. cap. 6.
[31] The Sparkling Stone, caps. 9, 10 and I2. The Twelve Béguines, cap. 12.
Compare Dante (Par. xxxiii. 97): “Cosi la mente mia, tutta sospesa, mirava
fissa, immobile ed attenta, e sempre del mirar faceasi accesa.”
[32] The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage, bk. iii. cap. 4.
[33] The Sparkling Stone, cap. 12, and The Book of Truth, caps. 10 and 12.
[34] The Sparkling Stone, cap. 14.
[35] Ibid., cap. 10, and The Book of Truth, cap. 12.
[36] The Twelve Béguines, cap. 16.
[37] The Book of Truth, caps. 11 and 13.
_________________________________________________________________
THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE
_________________________________________________________________
HERE BEGINS
THE FIRST BOOK
PROLOGUE
Ecce sponsus venit,
exile obviam ei.
Behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him. These words were
written by St Matthew the Evangelist, and Christ spoke them to His disciples
and to all other men in the parable of the virgins. This Bridegroom is
Christ, and human nature is the bride; the which God has made in His own
image and after His likeness. And in the beginning He had set her in the
highest and most beautiful, the richest and most fertile place in all the
earth: that is, in Paradise. And He had given her dominion over all
creatures; and He had adorned her with graces; and had given her a
commandment, so that by obedience she might have merited to be confirmed and
established with her Bridegroom in an eternal troth, and never to fall into
any grief, or any sin.
Then came a beguiler, the hellish fiend, full of envy, in the shape of a
subtle serpent, and he beguiled the woman; and they both beguiled the man,
in whom above all the whole of our nature consists. And the fiend seduced
that nature, the bride of God, with false counsel; and she was driven into a
strange country, poor and miserable and captive and oppressed, and beset by
her enemies; so that it seemed as though she might never attain
reconciliation and return again to her native land.
But when God thought the time had come, and had mercy on the suffering of
His beloved, He sent His Only Begotten Son to earth, in a fair chamber, in a
glorious temple; that is, in the body of the Virgin Mary. There He was
married to this bride, our nature, and He united her with His own person
through the most pure blood of this noble Virgin. The priest who married the
bride was the Holy Ghost; the angel Gabriel brought the offer; the glorious
Virgin gave her consent. Thus Christ, our faithful Bridegroom, united our
nature with His person; and He has sought us in strange countries, and
taught us heavenly customs and perfect faithfulness, and has laboured for us
and fought as our champion against the adversary. And He has broken open our
prison, and won the victory, and by His death slain our death; and He has
redeemed us by His blood, and made us free through His living waters of
baptism, and enriched us with His sacraments and with His gifts: that we
might go out (as He says) with all the virtues, to meet Him in the house of
glory and to enjoy Him without end in eternity.
Now Christ, the Master of Truth, says: Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye
out to meet Him. In these words, Christ our Lover teaches us four things.
First, He gives us a command, in that He says: Behold. Those who neglect
this command and remain blind are all damned. Secondly, He shows us what we
shall see, that is, the coming of the Bridegroom; for He says, The
Bridegroom cometh. In the third place, He teaches and commands us what we
shall do, for He says: Go ye out. And in the fourth place, by saying: To
meet Him, He shows us the use and the purpose of our labour and of all our
life; that is to say, the loving meeting with our Bridegroom.
These words we shall now declare and set forth in three ways. First,
according to the common way relating to the life of beginners, which is
called the Active Life, and which is necessary for all men who wish to be
saved. Secondly, we will explain these same words in their relation to the
interior, exalted, and God-desiring life, at which many men may arrive by
their virtues and by the grace of God. Thirdly, we will expound them in
respect of a superessential, God-seeing life, which few men can attain or
taste, by reason of the sublimity and high nobility of that life.
_________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER I
OF THE ACTIVE LIFE
Since the time of Adam, Christ, the Wisdom of the Father, has said to all
men, and He says so still, inwardly according to His Divinity: Behold. And
this beholding is needful. Now mark this well: that for anyone who wishes to
see, either in a bodily or a ghostly manner, three things are necessary.
The first thing is that, if a man will see bodily and outwardly, he must
have the outward light of heaven, or some other material light, to
illuminate the medium, that is, the air, through which he will see. The
second thing is, that he must permit the things which he wishes to see to be
reflected in his eyes. And the third thing is that the organs, the eyes,
must be sound and flawless, so that gross bodily things can be subtly
reflected in them. If a man lack any of these three things his bodily sight
is wanting. Of this sight, however, we shall say nothing more; but we shall
speak of a ghostly and supernatural sight, in which all our bliss abides.
For all who wish to see in a ghostly and supernatural manner three things
also are needful. The first is the light of Divine grace; the second is a
free turning of the will to God, the third is a conscience clean from any
mortal sin.
Now mark this: God being a common good, and His boundless love being common
to all, He gives His grace in two ways: prevenient grace, and the grace by
which one merits eternal life. Prevenient grace is common to all men, Pagan
and Jew, good and evil. By reason of His common love, which God has towards
all men, He has caused His name and the redemption of human nature to be
preached and revealed to the uttermost parts of the earth. Whosoever wishes
to turn to Him can turn to Him. All the sacraments, baptism and every other
sacrament are made ready for all men who wish to receive them according to
the needs of each; for God wishes to save all men and to lose not one. At
the day of Judgment, no one shall be able to complain that, had he wished to
be converted, but little was done for him. Thus God is a common light and a
common splendour enlightening heaven and earth, and every man, each
according to his need and worth. [38]
But although, even as God is common to all, the sun shines upon all trees,
yet many a tree remains without fruits, and many a tree brings forth wild
fruits of little use to men. And for this reason such trees are pruned, and
shoots of fruitful trees are grafted into them, so that they may bear good
fruits, savoury and useful to man.
The light of Divine grace is a fruit-bearing shoot, coming forth from the
living paradise of the eternal kingdom; and no deed can bring refreshment or
profit to man if it be not born of this shoot. This shoot of Divine grace,
which makes man pleasing to God, and through which he merits eternal life,
is offered to all men. But it is not grafted into all, because some will not
cut away the wild branches of their trees; that is, unbelief, and a perverse
and disobedient will opposed to the commandments of God.
But if this shoot of God’s grace is to be grafted into our souls, there must
be of necessity three things: the prevenient grace of God, the conversion of
one’s own free will, and the purification of conscience. The prevenient
grace touches all men, God bestowing it upon all men. But not all men give
on their part the conversion of the will and the purification of conscience;
and that is why so many lack the grace of God, through which they should
merit eternal life.
The prevenient grace of God touches a man from without and from within. From
without through sickness; or through the loss of external goods, of kinsmen,
and of friends; or through public disgrace. Or he may be stirred by a
sermon, or by the examples of the saints or of good men, their words, or
their deeds; so that he learns to recognize himself as he is. This is how
God touches a man from without.
Sometimes a man is touched also from within, through remembering the sorrows
and the sufferings of our Lord, and the good which God has bestowed upon him
and upon all other men; or by considering his sins, the shortness of life,
the fear of death and the fear of hell, the eternal torments of hell and the
eternal joy of heaven, and how God has spared him in his sins and has
awaited his conversion. Or he may ponder the marvellous works of God in
heaven and in earth, and in all creatures. Such are the workings of the
prevenient grace of God, stirring men from without and from within, in many
ways. And besides this, man has a natural tendency towards God, because of
the spark of the soul, and because of that highest reason, which always
desires the good and hates the evil. In all these ways God touches all men,
each one according to his need; so that at times a man is smitten, reproved,
alarmed, and stands still within himself to consider himself. And all this
is still prevenient grace, and not yet efficacious grace. Thus does
prevenient grace prepare the soul for the reception of the other grace,
through which eternal life is merited. For when the soul has thus got rid of
evil willing and evil doing, it is perplexed and smitten with fear of what
it should do, considering itself, its wicked works, and God. And from this
there arise a natural repentance of its sins and a natural good-will. Such
is the highest work of prevenient grace.
If a man does all he can, and cannot do more because of his feebleness, it
rests with the infinite goodness of God to finish the work. Then, straight
as a sunbeam, there comes a higher light of Divine grace, and it is shed
into the soul according to its worth, though neither merited nor desired.
For in this light God gives Himself out of free goodness and generosity, the
which never creature can merit before it has received it. And this is an
inward and mysterious working of God in the soul, above time; and it moves
the soul and all its powers. Therewith ends prevenient grace and begins the
other grace, that is to say, the supernatural light.
This light is the first point necessary, and from it there arises a second
point, and that on the part of the soul; namely, the free conversion of the
will, in a single moment of time. And here it is that charity is born of the
union of God with the soul. These two points hang together, so that the one
cannot be fulfilled without the other. Where God and the soul come together
in the union of love, then God, above time, gives His light; and the soul,
in a single moment of time, gives, by virtue of the grace received, its free
conversion to Him. And there charity is born of God and of the soul in the
soul, for charity is a bond of love, tying God to the loving soul.
Of these two things—that is to say, the grace of God and the free conversion
of the will enlightened by grace—charity, that is, Divine love, is born. And
from this Divine love the third point arises; that is, the purification of
conscience. And these three points belong together in such a way that one
cannot exist long without the others; for whosoever has Divine love has also
perfect contrition for his sins.
Yet here we must take heed to the order of Divine and creaturely things as
they are here shown. For God gives His light, and by this light man gives
his willing and perfect conversion: and of these two is born a perfect love
towards God. And from this love there come forth perfect contrition and
purification of conscience. And these arise from the consideration of
misdeeds and all that may defile the soul: for when a man loves God he
despises himself and all his works. This is the order of every conversion.
From it there come true repentance, a perfect sorrow for every evil thing
which one has done, and an ardent desire never to sin again and evermore to
serve God in humble obedience. Hence too an open confession, without
reserve, ambiguity, or excuse; a perfect satisfaction according to the
counsel of a prudent priest; and the beginning of virtue and of all good
works.
These three things, as you have heard, are needful to a spiritual or godly
sight. If you have them, Christ is saying within you: Behold, and you are
beholding in truth. And this is the first of the four chief points; namely,
that in which Christ our Lord says: Behold.
_________________________________________________________________
[38] “Light” is the second of the Divine Names which Dionysius the
Areopagite attributes to the Godhead, being placed by him between
“Goodness” and “Beauty”; and his influence may be traced in Ruysbroeck’s
frequent use of it. Thus he says, “Let us now extol the spiritual name of
Light, under which we contemplate the Good; and declare that He is called
spiritual Light because He fills every supercelestial mind with spiritual
light, expelling ignorance and error from all souls in which they may be . .
. the Good is therefore called spiritual Light above all other light: as
fontal Ray and overflowing Stream of light, shining out of its fulness upon
every mind above, around, and in the world, renewing all their powers, and
embracing them in its span. (Divine Names, cap. 4.)
_________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER II
SHOWING HOW WE SHALL CONSIDER THE COMING OF CHRIST IN THREE WAYS
Now, by saying: The Bridegroom cometh, He shows us further what we shall
see. Christ, our Bridegroom, spoke this word in Latin: Venit. And this word
implies two tenses, the past and the present; and yet here it denotes the
future too.
And that is why we shall consider three comings of our Bridegroom, Jesus
Christ. In the first coming He became man, for man’s sake, out of love. The
second coming takes place daily, often and many times, in every loving
heart, with new graces and with new gifts, as each is able to receive them.
The third coming we shall see as the coming in the Judgment, or at the hour
of death. And in all these comings there are three things to be considered:
the why and the wherefore, the inward way, and the outward work.
The reason why God created the angels and man, was His unfathomable goodness
and nobleness whereby He willed to do it; that the bliss and the richness
which He is Himself might be revealed to rational creatures, so that they
might taste Him in time, and enjoy Him outside time in eternity.
The reason why God became man was His incomprehensible love, and the need of
all men; for man had been corrupted by the Fall, and could not amend
himself.
But the reason why Christ, according to His Godhead and according to His
manhood, wrought all His works on earth, this reason is fourfold: His Divine
love which is without measure; the created love, called charity, which He
had in His soul through union with the Eternal Word and through the perfect
gift of His Father; the great need of man; and the glory of His Father.
These are the reasons for the coming of Christ our Bridegroom, and for all
His works, both outward and inward.
Now, if we would follow Christ our Bridegroom in virtue, so far as we are
able, we must consider in what wise He was inwardly and the works which He
wrought outwardly; that is to say, His virtues and the deeds of these
virtues.
In what wise He was according to His Godhead, this is inaccessible and
incomprehensible to us; for it is that according to which He is born of the
Father without ceasing, and wherein the Father, in Him and through Him,
knows, creates, orders and rules all things in heaven and on earth. For He
is the Wisdom of the Father, and they breathe forth one Spirit, that is, one
Love, which is a common bond between Them and all saints, and all good men
in heaven and on earth. Of this condition we shall not speak any more; but
we shall speak of that condition which He had through Divine gifts and
according to His created manhood. [39] And this condition was manifold. For
as many inward virtues as Christ possessed, so many were His inward
conditions: for every virtue has its special condition. The sum of the
virtues and conditions in the soul of Christ, this is above the
understanding and above the comprehension of all creatures. But we shall
take three of them: namely, humility, charity, and patient suffering, in
inward and outward things. These are the three chief roots and beginnings of
all virtues and all perfection.
_________________________________________________________________
[39] The word here translated “conditions” is Ruysbroeck’s favourite term,
“wise,” meaning ways or modes of being; literally, “how” Christ was as
regards each virtue. The Flemish of this passage reads, “Want alsoe menighe
inwendighe doghet, alsoe menighe inwendighe wise hadde Christus.”
_________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER III
OF HUMILITY
Now understand this: we find in Christ, according to His Godhead, two kinds
of humility.
The first kind is this: that He willed to become man, and took upon Himself
that very nature which had been banished and cursed to the bottom of hell,
and willed to become one with it according to His personality; so that now
any man, either good or evil, can say: Christ, the Son of God, is my
brother.
The second kind of humility according to His Godhead consists in this; that
He chose a poor maiden, and not a king’s daughter, for His mother, so that a
poor maiden should be the mother of God, who is Lord of heaven and earth and
all creatures.
And further, we can say of all the works of humility which Christ ever
wrought, that they were wrought by God Himself.
Now let us take the humility which was in Christ according to His manhood
and through the grace and the gifts of God. In this humility His soul with
all its powers bowed down in reverence and adoration before the most high
might of the Father; for a bowed down heart is a humble heart. And therefore
He wrought all His works for the praise and for the honour of His Father,
and never and in nothing sought His own glory according to His humanity.
He was humble and subject to the old law, and to the commandments, and also
to custom whenever such was right. And that is why He was circumcised, and
taken into the temple, and redeemed in the customary way; and He paid His
tribute money to Caesar like any other Jew. And He was humble and subject to
His mother and to the lord Joseph; and that is why He served them with true
reverence according to all their needs. He chose poor and outcast people for
His comrades, to live with, and wherewith to convert the world: these were
the Apostles. And He was lowly and meek among them and among all other men.
And He was ever ready for all men in whatever inward or outward need they
might be: as if he were the servant of all the world.
This is the first point which we find in Christ our Bridegroom.
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CHAPTER IV
OF CHARITY
The second point is charity, beginning and origin of all virtues. This
charity upheld the higher powers of His soul in quietness, and in a fruition
of that very bliss which He now enjoys. And this charity kept Him constantly
uplifted to His Father in reverence, in love, in adoration, in praise; with
fervent prayers for the needs of all men, and with an offering up of all His
works to the glory of His Father.
It was also this same charity that made Christ stoop with loving
faithfulness and kindness to the bodily and ghostly needs of all men. And in
this He gave an example to all men, teaching them by His life how to live.
He fed in ghostly wise with true and inward teachings all those men who
could understand them: and others from without through the senses with signs
and wonders. And sometimes He fed them also with bodily food, as when they
had followed Him into the desert and were in need of it. He made the deaf
hear and the lame walk straight, and the blind see, and the dumb speak, and
cast forth devils from men. He raised up the dead; and this should be
understood both in a bodily and a ghostly way. Christ, our Lover, has
laboured for us from without and from within, with true faithfulness. His
charity we cannot fathom and understand, for it flows out of the
unfathomable fountain of the Holy Ghost, and transcends all that creatures
have ever experienced of charity; for Christ was God and man in one Person.
And this is the second point: that is to say, charity.
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CHAPTER V
OF PATIENT ENDURANCE
The third point is patient endurance. We should mark this point carefully,
for it adorned Christ our Bridegroom during all His life. For His sufferings
began very early, as soon as He was born; they began with poverty and cold.
Then He was circumcised and shed His blood; He was driven to a strange
country; He served the lord Joseph and His mother; He suffered hunger and
thirst, shame and contempt, the vile words and works of the Jews. He fasted,
He watched, and He was tempted by the devil. He was subject to all men; He
wandered from country to country, from town to town, with much labour and
great zeal, that He might preach the Gospel.
At last He was taken prisoner by the Jews, who were His enemies, though He
was their friend. He was betrayed, mocked and insulted, scourged and
buffetted, and condemned by false witness. He bore His cross with great
pains up to the highest point of the land. He was stripped stark naked. So
fair a body neither man nor woman ever saw so cruelly ill-used. He suffered
shame, and anguish, and cold, before all the world: for He was naked, and it
was cold, and a searching wind cut into His wounds. He was nailed to the
wood of the cross with blunt nails, and so stretched out that His veins were
torn asunder. He was lifted up and then flung down, and because of the blow
His wounds began to bleed again. His head was crowned with thorns; His ears
heard the Jews cry in their fury: Crucify Him, Crucify Him, with many other
infamous words. His eyes saw the hardness and malice of the Jews, and the
anguish of His mother. And His eyes overflowed with the bitterness of sorrow
and death; His nose smelt the filth which the Jews spat out of their mouths
into His face; His mouth and tongue dripped with vinegar mingled with gall,
and every sensitive part of His body had been wounded by the scourge.
Christ our Bridegroom, wounded to the death, forsaken of God and of all
creatures, dying on the cross, hanging like a log for which no one cared,
save Mary, His poor mother, who could not help Him!
Christ also suffered spiritually, in His soul, because of the hardened
hearts of the Jews and of those who were putting Him to death; for whatever
signs and wonders they saw, they remained in their wickedness. And He
suffered because of their corruption and because of the vengeance for His
death; for He knew that God would avenge it on them, body and soul. Also He
suffered from the distress and anguish of His mother and His disciples, who
were in great affliction. And He suffered still more, because His death
would be of no profit to so many men, and because of the ingratitude of man
and because of the false oaths which many would swear, reviling and
blaspheming Him Who had died out of love for us all. And also His bodily
nature and His lower reason suffered, because God had withdrawn the inflow
of His grace and of His consolations, and had left them alone in such
distress. And of this Christ complained, exclaiming: My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me? But as to all His sufferings our Lover was silent;
and cried to His Father saying: Father, forgive them; for they know not what
they do. And Christ was heard of His Father because of His reverence; for
those who acted from ignorance were soon afterwards converted.
These then were Christ’s inward virtues: humility, charity, and patient
endurance. These three virtues Christ our Bridegroom practised during all
His life, and He died with them, and paid our debt according to justice. And
of His generosity He has opened His side. Thence flow forth the rivers of
well-being and the sacraments of bliss. And He has ascended in power, and
sits at the right hand of the Father, and reigns in eternity.
This is the first coming of our Bridegroom, and it is wholly past.
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CHAPTER VI
OF THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
The second coming of Christ our Bridegroom takes place every day within good
men; often and many times, with new graces and gifts, in all those who make
themselves ready for it, each according to his power. We would not speak
here of a man’s first conversion, nor of the first grace which was given to
him when he turned from sin to the virtues. But we would speak of an
increase of new gifts and new virtues from day to day, and of the present
coming of Christ our Bridegroom which takes place daily within our souls.
Now we must consider the why and the wherefore, the way and the working of
this coming. Its wherefore is fourfold: God’s mercy and our destitution,
God’s generosity and our desire. These four things cause the growth of
virtue and of nobleness.
Now understand this: when the sun sends its beams and its radiance into a
deep valley between two high mountains, and, standing in the zenith, can yet
shine upon the bottom and ground of the valley, then three things happen:
the valley becomes full of light by reflection from the mountains, and it
receives more heat, and becomes more fruitful, than the plain and level
country. And so likewise, when a good man takes his stand upon his own
littleness, in the most lowly part of himself, and confesses and knows that
he has nothing, and is nothing, and can nothing, of himself, neither stand
still nor go on, and when he sees how often he fails in virtues and good
works: then he confesses his poverty and his helplessness, then he makes a
valley of humility. And when he is thus humble, and needy, and knows his own
need; he lays his distress, and complains of it, before the bounty and the
mercy of God. And so he marks the sublimity of God and his own lowliness;
and thus he becomes a deep valley. And Christ is a Sun of righteousness and
also of mercy, Who stands in the highest part of the firmament, that is, on
the right hand of the Father, and from thence He shines into the bottom of
the humble heart; for Christ is always moved by helplessness, whenever a man
complains of it and lays it before Him with humility. Then there arise two
mountains, that is, two desires; one to serve God and praise Him with
reverence, the other to attain noble virtues. Those two mountains are higher
than the heavens, for these longings touch God without intermediary, and
crave His ungrudging generosity. And then that generosity cannot withhold
itself, it must flow forth; for then the soul is made ready to receive, and
to hold, more gifts.
These are the wherefore, and the way of the new coming with new virtues.
Then, this valley, the humble heart, receives three things: it becomes more
radiant and enlightened by grace, it becomes more ardent in charity, and it
becomes more fruitful in perfect virtues and in good works. And thus you
have the why, the way, and the work of this coming.
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CHAPTER VII
OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENTS
There is still another coming of Christ our Bridegroom, taking place every
day, with growth of grace and renewal of gifts. That is, when a man receives
some sacrament with a humble heart void of anything contrary thereto. In
this way he receives new gifts and more ample grace, because of his humility
and through the mysterious working of Christ in the sacraments. Those things
which are contrary to the sacraments are unbelief in Baptism, a lack of
repentance in Confession, and approaching the Sacrament of the Altar in the
state of mortal sin or with an evil intention; and so on as regards the
other sacraments. Those who act thus receive no new grace; rather does their
sinfulness increase.
This is the other coming of Christ our Bridegroom, which is present with us
every day. We should consider it with a desiring heart, lest it should not
take place within us; for it is needful, if we are to remain steadfast and
to go forward in eternal life.
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CHAPTER VIII
OF THE THIRD COMING OF CHRIST
The third coming, which is yet to be, will take place at the Judgment, or in
the hour of death. The wherefore of this coming is the fitting time, the due
cause, and the righteousness of the Judge.
The time which is fitting for this coming is the hour of death, and the Last
Judgment of all men. When God created the soul out of nothing and united it
with the body, He set a fixed day and a fixed hour known only of Him, when
it should have to give up temporal things and to appear in His presence.
The due cause: for the soul must then account for every word spoken and for
every deed done, before the Eternal Truth.
The righteousness of the Judge, for it is to Christ that this Judgment and
this Verdict belong; for He is the Son of Man and the Wisdom of the Father,
and to this Wisdom all judgment is given, since all hearts, in heaven, and
on earth, and in hell, are clear and open to It. And therefore these three
points are the occasions of the general coming in the Day of Doom, and of
the particular coming to each man in the hour of his death.
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CHAPTER IX
SHOWING WHAT CHRIST WILL DO IN THE DAY OF DOOM
In this Judgment Christ, our Bridegroom and our Judge, will reward and
punish, according to justice; for He will give every man that which he has
earned. He will give to the good, for every good work done in God, a wage
without measure, that is to say, God’s very Self, Whom no creature of itself
can earn. But when God works these works with and through the creature, then
by His power the creature gains His very Self as wage. And with due justice
He will give eternal woe and eternal sorrow to the damned; for these
despised and rejected the Eternal Good for a good that cannot endure. And of
their own free will they have turned away from God, and have set themselves
against His glory and His will, and have sought after creatures; and so
shall they be justly condemned.
Those who bear witness at the Judgment are the angels and the conscience of
men. And the adversary is the hellish fiend; and the Judge is Christ, Whom
none can deceive.
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CHAPTER X
OF THE FIVE KINDS OF MEN WHO SHALL APPEAR AT THE JUDGMENT
Five kinds of men shall appear before this Judge.
The first, and the worst, are those Christians who have died in mortal sin,
without repentance and without regret; for these have despised the death of
Christ and His sacraments, or else they have received them unworthily and in
vain. And they have not practised the works of mercy, showing charity toward
their neighbours, as God has commanded. And for this they are doomed to the
depths of hell.
The second kind are the unbelievers, Pagans and Jews. These must all appear
before Christ, though they were damned already during their lives; for, in
their time, they possessed neither Divine grace nor Divine love, and for
this reason they have always dwelt in the eternal death of damnation. But
these shall have less pain than the evil Christians; for, since they
received fewer gifts of God, they owed Him less loyalty.
The third kind are those good Christians who, from time to time, fell into
sin, and rose again through contrition and penance; but who have not made
full satisfaction for their sins according to justice. These belong to
purgatory.
The fourth kind consists of those men who have kept God’s commandments; or,
when they broke them, they have returned to God with contrition and with
penance, and with works of charity and mercy and so have made satisfaction;
so that their souls coming forth from their mouths go straight to heaven,
without passing through purgatory.
The fifth kind are all those who, above all outward works of charity, have
their sojourn in heaven, and are noughted and lost in God, and God in them,
so that there is no other thing between God and them but time and their
mortal nature. When these men are made free from their bodies, they enjoy,
in that very moment, eternal bliss; and they are not judged, but shall
themselves judge other men, with Christ, in the Day of Doom. And then all
mortal life, and all temporal sorrows, both on earth and in purgatory, shall
end, and all the souls of the damned, together with the Fiend and his
companions, shall sink and disappear in the deeps of hell, in a corruption
and everlasting horror without end. And in the twinkling of an eye the
blessed shall be with Christ their Bridegroom in eternal glory; and they
shall see and taste and enjoy the fathomless riches of the Being of God,
eternally and for ever.
This is the third coming, which all of us await, and which is still to
happen. The first coming, when God became man and lived in humility among
us, and died for the love of us, this coming we should imitate, outwardly by
fulfilling the perfect moral virtues, inwardly by the practice of charity
and true humility. In the second coming, which happens in the present time,
He comes with grace within each loving heart; and this coming we should long
for and pray for every day, that we may remain steadfast and grow in new
virtues. The third coming, at the Judgment, or in the hour of death, we
should expect with longing, with trust, and with awe; that we may be set
free from this misery and enter into the house of glory.
This coming in its three ways is the second point of the four chief points,
wherein Christ says: Sponsus venit, The Bridegroom cometh.
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CHAPTER XI
OF A SPIRITUAL GOING OUT WITH ALL VIRTUES
Now understand and mark this: Christ says, at the beginning of this precept,
Behold; and this is done through charity and a pure conscience, as you have
heard before. Then He has shown us what we shall see, that is, the threefold
coming.
Now He commands us what we shall do next, and says: Go ye out. If you
possess the first point, that is, if you are able to see, through grace and
through charity; and if, further, you have gazed well upon your pattern
Christ and His going out; then, there arises within you, out of charity, and
out of the loving observation of your Bridegroom, a righteousness, [40]
namely, that thereafter you long to follow Him in the virtues. Then Christ
is saying within you: Go ye out. This going out must be done in three ways:
we must go out towards God, towards ourselves, and towards our neighbours,
and this we must do by means of charity and righteousness. For charity ever
strives towards the height, towards the kingdom of God, which is God
Himself; for He is the source from which unmediated charity flows forth, and
wherein it abides in the Unity. And righteousness, which is born of charity,
wills the perfection of all the moral and all the other virtues which are
honourable and proper to the kingdom of God, that is the soul.
Charity and Righteousness: these two lay the foundation of the kingdom of
the soul where God would dwell. And this foundation is humility.
These three virtues prop and bear the whole weight and the whole edifice of
all the other virtues and of all transcendence. For charity always confronts
man with the unfathomable goodness of God, from which it has flowed forth,
that thereby he may live worthily and remain steadfast before God, and grow
in true humility and all other virtues. And righteousness places man face to
face with the eternal truth of God, that he may know truth, and become
enlightened, and may fulfil all virtue without erring. But humility brings
man face to face with the most high mightiness of God, that he may always
remain little and lowly, and may surrender himself to God, and may not stand
upon his selfhood. This is the way in which a man should hold himself before
God, that thereby he may grow continually in new virtues.
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[40] “Righteousness” (gherechticheit) must be read here and onwards in the
sense, not only of goodness, but of justice and rightness in the conduct of
life. “It is meet and right so to do.”
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CHAPTER XII
HOW HUMILITY IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL OTHER VIRTUES
Now consider this: as we have laid down humility as a foundation, so
therefore we shall speak of humility first.
Humility, that is lowliness or self-abasement, is an inward bowing down or
prostrating of the heart and of the conscience before God’s transcendent
worth. Righteousness demands and orders this, and through charity a loving
heart cannot leave it undone. When a lowly and loving man considers that God
has served him so humbly, so lovingly, and so faithfully; and sees God so
high, and so mighty, and so noble, and man so poor, and so little, and so
low: then there springs up within the humble heart a great awe and a great
veneration for God. For to pay homage to God by every outward and inward
act, this is the first and dearest work of humility, the most savoury among
those of charity, and most meet among those of righteousness. The loving and
humble heart cannot pay homage enough, either to God or to His noble
manhood, nor can it abase itself as much as it would. And that is why a
humble man thinks that his worship of God and his lowly service are always
falling short. And he is meek, reverencing Holy Church and the sacraments.
And he is discreet in food and drink, in speech, in the answers which he
makes to everybody; and in his behaviour, dress, and lowly service he is
without hypocrisy and without pretence. And he is humble in his devotions,
both outwardly and inwardly, before God and before all men, so that none are
offended because of him. And so he overcomes and casts out Pride, which is
the source and origin of all other sins. By humility the snares of the
devil, and of sin, and of the world, are broken, and man is set in order,
and established in the very condition of virtue. And heaven is opened to
him, and God stoops to hear his prayers, and he is fulfilled with grace. And
Christ, that strong rock, is his foundation. Whosoever therefore grounds his
virtues in humility, he shall never err.
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CHAPTER XIII
OF OBEDIENCE
From this humility there springs obedience, for none can be inwardly
obedient save the humble man.
Obedience means an unassuming, submissive, and pliable humour, and a will in
readiness for all that is good. Obedience makes a man submit to the
biddings, the forbiddings, and the will of God; it subjects the senses and
the animal powers to the higher reason, so that a man may live decently and
reasonably. And it makes men submissive and obedient to Holy Church, to the
sacraments, to the prelates and their teaching, to their commandments and
their counsels, and to all the good customs practised by Holy Christendom.
It also makes a man ready and supple in his intercourse with other men, in
deed and counsel, in ghostly and bodily business, with prudent discretion,
according to the needs of each.
And it casts out disobedience, that daughter of pride, more to be abhorred
than venom or poison. To be obedient in will and deed adorns and enlarges
and reveals the humility of a man. It makes peace in the cloister. If it is
in the prelate, as it ought to be, it will draw to him all those whom he
rules. It makes for peace and unanimity between equals; and he who has it is
loved by his superiors and by those who are set over him; whilst by God he
is advanced, and enriched with His gifts, which are eternal.
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CHAPTER XIV
OF THE RENUNCIATION OF SELF WILL
From this obedience there springs the renunciation of one’s own will and
one’s own opinion, for none can submit his own will in all things to the
will of another, save the obedient man: though one may obey in outward
things and yet remain self-willed.
The forsaking of one’s own will causes a man to live without preference for
either this or that, in doing or leaving undone, in those things which are
strange and special in the saints, in their precepts and in their practice;
but it makes him to live always according to the glory and the commandments
of God, and the will of his prelates, and in peace with all men in his
neighbourhood, so far as true prudence permits.
By renouncing self-will in doing, in leaving undone, and in suffering, the
material and occasion of pride are wholly cast out, and humility is made
perfect in the highest degree. And God becomes the Lord of the man’s whole
will; and the man’s will is so united with the will of God that he can
neither will nor desire in any other way. This man has put off the old man,
and has put on the new man, who is renewed and made according to the dearest
will of God. Of all such Christ says: Blessed are the poor in spirit—that is
to say, those who have renounced self-will—for theirs is the Kingdom of
Heaven. [41]
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[41] It will be seen that the description of the virtues in this section,
like that of the terraces in Dante’s Purgatorio, is arranged upon a definite
plan. Each virtue or group of qualities opposes one of the seven mortal
sins, and is associated with one of the Beatitudes.
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CHAPTER XV
OF PATIENCE
From the renunciation of self-will springs patience; for none can be
perfectly patient in all things save the man who has subjected his own will
to the will of God, and also in all profitable and seemly things, to the
will of all other men.
Patience is a peaceful endurance of all things that may befall a man either
from God or from the creatures. Nothing can trouble the patient man; neither
the loss of earthly goods, of friends and kinsmen, nor sickness, nor
disgrace, nor life, nor death, nor purgatory, nor devil, nor hell. For he
has abandoned himself in perfect charity to the will of God, and as he is
not burdened by mortal sin, everything that God imposes on him, in time and
in eternity, is light to him. By this patience a man is also adorned and
armed against peevishness and sudden wrath, and impatience in suffering;
which often stir a man from within and from without, and lay him open to
many temptations.
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CHAPTER XVI
OF MEEKNESS
From this patience there spring meekness and kindliness, for none can be
meek in adversity save the patient man.
Meekness gives a man peace and rest in all things. For the meek man can bear
provoking words and ways, uncivil looks and deeds, and every kind of
injustice towards himself and his friends, and yet in all things remain in
peace, for meekness is peaceful endurance.
By meekness the irascible or repulsive power remains unmoved, in quietude;
the desirous power is uplifted toward virtue; the rational power, perceiving
this, rejoices. And the conscience, tasting it, rests in peace; for the
second mortal sin, Anger, fury, or wrath, has been cast out. For the Spirit
of God dwells in the humble and the meek; and Christ says: Blessed are the
meek, for they shall inherit the earth, that is, their own nature and all
earthly things, in meekness; and after that the Country of Life in Eternity.
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CHAPTER XVII
OF KINDLINESS
Out of the same source wherein meekness takes its rise springs kindliness,
for none can be kind save the meek man.
This kindness makes a man show a friendly face, and give a cordial response,
and do compassionate deeds, to those who are quarrelsome, when he hopes that
they will come to know themselves and mend their ways.
By gentleness and kindness, charity is kept quick and fruitful in man, for a
heart full of kindness is like a lamp full of precious oil; for the oil of
mercy enlightens the erring sinner with good example, and with words and
works of comfort it anoints and heals those whose hearts are wounded or
grieved or perplexed. And it is a fire and a light for those who dwell in
the virtues, in the fire of charity; and neither jealousy nor envy can
perturb it.
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CHAPTER XVIII
OF COMPASSION
Out of kindliness springs compassion, which is a fellow-feeling with all
men; for none can share the griefs of all, save him who is kind.
Compassion is an inward movement of the heart, stirred by pity for the
bodily and ghostly griefs of all men. This compassion makes a man suffer
with Christ in His passion; for he who is compassionate marks the wherefore
of His pains and the way of His resignation; of His love, His wounds, His
tenderness; of His grief and His nobleness; of the disgrace, the misery, and
the shame He endured; of the way in which He was despised; of His crown; of
the nails; of His mercifulness; of His destruction and dying in patience.
These manifold and unheard-of sorrows of Christ, our Saviour and our
Bridegroom, move all kindly men to pity and compassion with Christ.
Compassion makes a man look into himself, and recognize his faults, his
feebleness in virtues and in the worship of God, his lukewarmness, his
laziness, his many failings, the time he has wasted and his present
imperfection in moral and other virtues; all this makes a man feel true pity
and compassion for himself. Further, compassion marks the errors and
disorders of our fellow-creatures, how little they care for their God and
their eternal blessedness, their ingratitude for all the good things which
God has done for them, and the pains He suffered for their sake; how they
are strangers to virtue, unskilled and unpractised in it, but skilful and
cunning in every wickedness; how attentive they are to the loss and gain of
earthly goods, how careless and reckless they are of God, of eternal things,
and their eternal bliss. When he marks this, a good man is moved to
compassion for the salvation of all men.
Such a man will also regard with pity the bodily needs of his neighbours,
and the manifold sufferings of human nature; seeing men hungry, thirsty,
cold, naked, sick, poor, and abject; the manifold oppressions of the poor,
the grief caused by loss of kinsmen, friends, goods, honour, peace; all the
countless sorrows which befall the nature of man. These things move the just
to compassion, so that they share the sorrows of all. But their greatest
pain springs from this: that men are so impatient of this suffering, that
they lose their reward, and may often earn hell for themselves. Such is the
work of compassion and of pity.
This work of compassion and of common neighbourly love overcomes and casts
out the third mortal sin, that is hatred or Envy. For compassion is a wound
in the heart, whence flows a common love to all mankind and which cannot be
healed so long as any suffering lives in man; for God has ordained grief and
sorrow of heart before all the virtues. And this is why Christ says: Blessed
are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. And that shall come to
pass when they reap in joy that which now, through compassion and pity, they
sow in tears.
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CHAPTER XIX
OF GENEROSITY
From this compassion springs generosity; for none can be generous in a
supernatural way, with faithfulness and goodwill towards all, save him who
has a pitiful heart—though a man may often show generosity to a particular
person without charity and without supernatural generosity.
Generosity is a liberal flowing forth of the heart which has been touched by
charity and pity. When a man considers with compassion the sufferings and
the sorrows of Christ, therefrom springs generosity; which makes him offer
to Christ, for His pains and for His love, praise and thanks, worship and
adoration, with a joyful and humble surrender of body and soul, in time and
in eternity. If a man considers himself with compassion, and has pity on
himself, and thinks upon the good which God has done to him, and his own
failings: then he must pour himself forth into the generosity of God, taking
refuge in His faithfulness and His mercy, turning to Him with trust and with
a perfect and free intention to serve Him for evermore. And the generous man
who sees the errors and disorders of others, and their unrighteousness,
beseeches and prays God, with ardent faith, that He will let His Divine
gifts flow forth, that He will show His generosity to all men, and they may
know Him and turn to the Truth. The generous man also marks with compassion
the bodily needs of all men, and he serves, and he gives, and he lends, and
he consoles everyone, according to the needs of each, in so far as he is
able, with prudent discretion.
Because of this generosity men are wont to practise the seven works of
mercy; the rich do them by their alms and because of their riches, the poor
by their good-will and by their hearty desire to do as the rich if they
could. And thus the virtue of generosity is made perfect.
By generosity of heart all other virtues are increased, and all the powers
of the soul are adorned; for the generous man is always blithe in spirit and
untroubled of heart, and he flows forth with desire and in his works of
virtue, to all men in common. Whosoever is generous, and loves not earthly
goods how poor soever he be, he is like God: for all that he has in himself,
and all that he feels, flow forth and are given away. And in this way he has
cast out the fourth mortal sin, which is covetousness or Avarice. Of all
such Christ says: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy in
that day when they shall hear these words: Come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you—because of your mercy,—from the
foundation of the world.
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CHAPTER XX
OF ZEAL AND DILIGENCE
Out of this generosity there spring a supernatural zeal and diligence in all
virtues and all that is seemly. And none can feel this zeal save him who
overflows with generosity. It is an inward restless striving after every
virtue, after the likeness of Christ and of all His saints. In this zeal a
man longs to devote his heart and his senses, his soul and his body, and all
that he is, and all that he has and all toward which he aspires, to the
glory and praise of God.
This zeal makes a man grow in reason and prudence, and practise the virtues,
both of soul and of body, in righteousness. Through this supernatural zeal
all the powers of the soul are laid open to God, and are made ready for all
virtues. And the conscience rejoices, and the grace of God is increased; the
virtues are practised with joy and gladness, and the outward works are
adorned.
Whosoever has received this living zeal from God has cast out the fifth
mortal sin, which is indolence of the mind or Sloth, as regards the virtues
which it is needful that we should practise. And sometimes, this living zeal
also casts out the sloth and indolence of the natural body. Of all such
Christ says: Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled, and this shall come to pass when
the glory of God shall be manifest to them, and shall fill them, each
according to his love and righteousness.
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CHAPTER XXI
OF TEMPERANCE AND SOBRIETY
From this zeal there spring temperance and sobriety, both inward and
outward; for none can possess the right measure of sobriety save him who is
greatly zealous and diligent to keep his soul and body in righteousness.
Sobriety divides the higher powers from the animal powers; it saves a man
from intemperance and from excess. Sobriety wishes neither to taste, nor to
know, those things which are forbidden.
The incomprehensible and most high Nature of God transcends all creatures in
heaven and on earth. For all that a creature can comprehend is of the
creature; but God is above all creatures and within and without all
creatures, and every created comprehension is too narrow to comprehend Him.
But if a creature is to comprehend and to understand God, it must be caught
up beyond itself into God, and comprehend God with God. Whosoever then would
know and understand what God is—which is not permitted—he would go mad.
Behold, all created light is powerless to know what God is. What God is in
Himself, transcends all creatures, but that God exists, is testified by
nature, and by Holy Writ, and by every creature. We should believe the
articles of faith, and not desire to understand them, for this is impossible
as long as we are here below: such is sobriety. The mysterious and subtle
teachings of Holy Writ, inspired by the Holy Ghost, should not be explained
and understood in any other way than in their bearing upon the lives of
Christ and His saints. Man should consider nature, and the Scriptures, and
all creatures, and take from these that which profits him and nothing more.
Such is sobriety of spirit.
A man should keep his senses in sobriety and should restrain the animal
powers by means of the reason; so that the lusts of the flesh do not enter
too far into the savouring of food and of drink; but he should eat and drink
as the sick take their physic, because it is needful to support his
strength, that he may serve God therewith. This is sobriety of body. He
should also observe method and moderation in doing and in leaving undone, in
words and in works, in silence and in speaking, in food and in drink,
according to the custom of Holy Church, and after the example of the saints.
By inward and ghostly temperance and sobriety a man preserves firmness and
constancy of faith, purity of intelligence, that tranquillity of reason
necessary to the comprehension of truth, an impulse towards all virtues
according to the will of God, peace of heart, and serenity of conscience.
And herewith he possesses an enduring peace, in God and in himself.
And by temperance and sobriety of the outward bodily senses, a man often
preserves the health and the soundness of his natural body, the dignity of
his outward life, and a good reputation. And thus he lives in peace with
himself and with his neighbours; for by his temperance and sobriety he draws
to himself and pleases all men of good-will. And thus he casts out the sixth
mortal sin, which is intemperance, greed or Gluttony. Of all such Christ
says: Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of
God; for they are like unto the Son, Who has made peace in every creature
who desired peace. And whosoever makes peace in himself through his
temperance and sobriety shall partake with Him of the inheritance of His
Father; and shall possess it with Him in eternity.
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CHAPTER XXII
OF PURITY
From this temperance there springs purity both of soul and of body, for none
can be perfectly pure in body and in soul save him who is temperate in body
and in soul.
Purity of spirit is this: that a man should not cleave to any creature with
desirous affection, but to God alone; for we should use all creatures, but
enjoy only God. Purity of spirit makes a man cleave to God, above all
understanding, and above all feelings, and above all the gifts which God may
pour into his soul: for all that a creature receives in his understanding
and in his feeling, purity will pass by, to rest in God. Go therefore to the
Sacrament of the Altar, not for the sake of refreshment, nor because of
desire, nor for pleasure, nor for peace, nor for satisfaction, nor for
sweetness, nor for anything else than the glory of God and your own growth
in all virtues. This is purity of spirit.
Purity of heart is this: that a man, in every bodily temptation or natural
inclination, of his own free will, and with an ever-renewed confidence and
without hesitation, turns to God; with an ever-renewed faithfulness and with
a firm will ever to remain with Him. For consenting to those sins or
satisfactions, which the bodily nature seeks like a beast, is a departure
from God.
Purity of body is this: that a man withdraws from, and bewares of, all
unchaste deeds, in whatsoever manner they be, which his conscience teaches
and declares to be unchaste, and contrary to the commandments, the honour,
and the will of God.
By these three kinds of purity the seventh mortal sin is overcome and cast
out; that is, Unchastity. And this is a consenting and turning of the spirit
from God to some creaturely thing; it is the unchaste work of the body
contrary to the dispensation of Holy Church; it is a sensual dwelling of the
heart upon the taste or enjoyment of some creature, whatsoever it be. But
thereby I do not mean those sudden movements of appetite and desire, which
no one can prevent.
Now you should know that purity of spirit keeps a man in the likeness of
God, untroubled by any creature and inclined towards God, and united with
Him.
Purity of body is likened to the whiteness of lilies and to the cleanness of
the angels. In withstanding, it is likened to the redness of roses and to
the nobleness of martyrs. If it is kept for the love and the glory of God,
it is perfect. And so it is likened to the sunflower, for it is one of the
highest ornaments of nature.
Purity of heart works a renewal and increase of the grace of God. By purity
of heart all the virtues are prompted, practised and preserved. It guards
and keeps the senses from without; it quells and restrains the animal lusts
from within; it is an adornment of all inwardness. And it is the door of the
heart; barred against all earthly things and all deceit, but opened to all
heavenly things and to all truth. And of all such Christ says: Blessed are
the pure in heart: for they shall see God; and in this vision consist our
eternal joy, our reward and our entrance into bliss. Therefore men should be
sober and temperate in all things, and beware of all intercourse and
occasion whereby purity, whether of soul or of body, may be defiled.
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CHAPTER XXIII
OF THREE ENEMIES TO BE OVERCOME BY RIGHTEOUSNESS
Now, if we wish to possess these virtues, and to cast out their opposites,
we must possess righteousness, and we must practise and preserve it in
purity of heart unto death; for we have three powerful adversaries, who
tempt us and make war on us at all times, in all places, and in many ways.
If we make peace with one of these three, and become subject to him, we are
vanquished; for the three of them agree together in all iniquity.
These three adversaries are the devil, the world and our own flesh; and this
last is the nearest to us and often the worst and most harmful of all three
to us; for our fleshly lusts are the weapons with which our enemies make war
on us. Idleness and indifference to virtue and the glory of God, these are
the causes and the occasions of the struggle. But the weakness of our
nature, our carelessness and ignorance of truth, these are the swords with
which our enemies often wound, and sometimes conquer us.
And for this reason we should build up a wall and make a separation within
ourselves. And the lower part of ourselves, which is beastly and contrary to
the virtues, and which wills our separation from God, we should hate and
persecute, and we should torment it by means of penances and austerity of
life; so that it be always repressed, and subject to reason, that thereby
righteousness and purity of heart may always have the upper hand in all the
works of virtue. And all the suffering, grief, and persecution, which God
sends us through these enemies of virtue, we should gladly bear for the
glory of God, and for the honour of the virtues, and that we may obtain and
possess righteousness in purity of heart; for Christ says: Blessed are they
which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the Kingdom of
Heaven. For a righteousness which is maintained in suffering and in virtuous
deeds is like the penny which is counted as heavy as the kingdom of God; and
with it is bought eternal life.
And with these virtues a man goes out towards God, towards himself, and
towards his neighbour, in good customs, in virtues, and in righteousness.
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CHAPTER XXIV
OF THE KINGDOM OF THE SOUL
Whosoever wishes to obtain and to keep these virtues should adorn and
possess and rule his soul like a kingdom. Free-will is the king of the soul.
It is free by nature and still more free by grace. It shall be crowned with
a crown that is called charity. The crown and the kingdom shall be received
from the Emperor, Who is Lord and Master and King of kings; and the kingdom
should be possessed, ruled, and maintained in His name. This king,
free-will, should dwell in the chief city of the kingdom; namely, in the
desirous power of the soul. And he should be clad and adorned with a garment
of two parts. The right side of his garment should be a virtue called
strength, that therewith he may be strong and mighty to overcome all
hindrances, and to ascend up to heaven, into the palace of the most high
Emperor, and to bow down his crowned head before the most high King, with
love, and with self-surrendered desire. This is the proper work of charity:
through it the crown is received, through it the crown is adorned, through
it the kingdom is maintained and possessed in eternity. The left side of the
garment should be a cardinal virtue called moral force. Through it,
free-will, the king, shall quell all immorality, and fulfil all virtues, and
shall possess his kingdom in power, even unto death.
This king should also choose councillors in his kingdom: the wisest in the
country. These should be two divine virtues: knowledge and discretion,
enlightened by the light of Divine grace. They should dwell near the king,
in a palace called the rational power of the soul, and they should be clad
and adorned with a moral virtue called temperance, so that the king may
always do or leave undone according to their counsels. By means of knowledge
our conscience shall be cleansed of all its failings and adorned with all
virtues; and by help of discretion we shall give and take, do and leave
undone, be silent and speak, fast and eat, listen and reply, and act in all
things according to knowledge and discretion, clad in the moral virtue
called temperance or sobriety.
This king, free-will, should also appoint in his kingdom a judge: that is,
righteousness. This is a divine virtue when it springs from love, and it is
one of the highest of moral virtues. This judge should dwell in the heart,
in the midst of the kingdom, in the irascible power. And he should be
adorned with a moral virtue called prudence; for righteousness cannot be
perfect without prudence. This judge, righteousness, should travel through
the kingdom with the king’s own power and majesty, and furnished with the
wisdom of the councillors, and with his own prudence. And he should set up
and cast down, judge and condemn, kill and leave alive, put to the torture,
blind and restore sight, raise and suppress, scourge and chastise, extirpate
all vices, and order all things according to righteousness.
The common people of the kingdom are all the other powers of the soul, which
should be grounded in humility and godly fear, and should be subject to God
in all virtues, each power according to its own character.
Whosoever possesses, maintains, and has ordered, the kingdom of his soul in
this way, has gone out with love and with virtue towards God, towards
himself and towards his neighbour.
And this is the third of the four principal points which we would consider.
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CHAPTER XXV
OF A SPIRITUAL MEETING OF GOD AND OURSELVES
When a man through the grace of God is able to behold, and his conscience is
clean, and he has considered the three comings of Christ our Bridegroom, and
when he has gone out with the virtues: then there ensues the meeting with
the Bridegroom, and that is the fourth point and the last. In this meeting
lies all our bliss, the beginning and end of all virtue; and without this
meeting no virtue has ever been fulfilled.
Whosoever wishes to meet Christ as his beloved Bridegroom, and to possess in
Him, and with Him, eternal life; he must now, in time, go out to meet Christ
at three points or in three ways. The first point is that he shall have God
in mind in all things through which we earn eternal life. The second point
is that there shall be nothing that he means or loves more than God or even
so much as God. And the third point is that he shall with great zeal seek to
rest in God, above all creatures and above all God’s gifts, above all the
works of virtue and above all feelings that God may infuse into soul and
body.
Now grasp this well: whosoever means God must have God present in his mind
under some godly attribute; and thereby he should mean only Him Who is the
Lord of heaven and earth and all creatures, Who died for him, and Who can,
and will, give him eternal bliss. In whatever way or under whatever name we
represent God to ourselves, if it be as the Lord over all creatures, that is
always right. If we conceive one of the Divine Persons, and in Him the being
and the might of the Divine Nature, that is right. If we set God before us
as Maintainer, Redeemer, Creator, Ruler; as Bliss, Power, Wisdom, Truth,
Goodness, and all this as within the abysmal properties of the Divine
Nature, that is right.
Though the names which we give to God are many, the most high Nature of God
is a Simplicity which cannot be named by any creature. But because of His
incomprehensible nobility and sublimity, which we cannot rightly name nor
wholly express, we give Him all these names. This is the way and the manner
of apprehension in which we should have God present in our mind; for, to
mean God, this is to see God in ghostly wise. And to this intention charity
and love also belong; for to know God and to be without charity has no
savour, neither does it help or further us. That is why a man should always
in all his works stretch towards God with love; Whom, above all things, he
aims at and loves. And this is going out to meet God by intention and by
love.
If a sinner would turn from his sins with full and true repentance, he must
go out to meet God in contrition and of his own free-will, and with an
upright purpose and intention to serve Him thenceforward and never to sin
any more. Then, in this meeting, he shall receive through the mercy of God a
sure hope of eternal bliss and the remission of his sins; and he shall
further receive the foundation of all virtue: namely, Faith, Hope, and
Charity, and a good-will toward all other virtues.
If this man wishes to go forward in the light of faith, and lay hold of all
the works of Christ, and all His suffering; all the things He promised us
and did to us and will do to us until the Day of Doom and in eternity; if
that man wishes to lay hold of these that they may avail to his salvation:
then he should go out to meet Christ once more, and should have Him ever in
his sight, with praise and thankfulness and with a worthy acknowledgment of
all His gifts, and all that He has done, and will do, in eternity. Then his
faith will be strengthened; and he will be more often, and more ardently
impelled towards all virtues.
If, then, he wishes to go forward in the works of virtue, he must also go
out to meet Christ with self-renunciation, neither seeking himself, nor
pursuing things alien from God; but let him be wise and discreet in all that
he does, having in mind in all things God alone, and God’s praise and glory,
and let him continue therein even unto death. Thereby his reason is
enlightened, and his charity is increased, and he grows in piety and in the
aptitude for all virtues.
We should have God in mind in all our good works; in evil works we cannot do
this. We should not have in mind two ends; that is to say, we should mean
God alone and nothing else. All other ends should be subordinate to God, not
opposed to God; they should be, in their order, a help and a furtherance,
that we may the better come to God. And then we are in the right way.
We should also rather seek our rest upon Him and in Him Whom we mean and
love, than in any of the messengers He sends; that is to say, His gifts. The
soul should also rest in God above all the jewels and all the gifts which it
may send back to God by its own messengers. The messengers of the soul are
intention, love, and desire: these carry all good deeds and all virtues up
to God. But above all these things, above all multiplicity, the soul should
rest in its Beloved. In this way and in this wise we should go out to meet
Christ with an upright intention during all our lives, and in all our works,
and in all our virtues; so that we may also meet Him in the light of glory
at the hour of death.
This method and this way, of which you have now heard, is called the Active
Life. It is needful for all men; and these, at least, should not live
contrary to virtue, even though they may not possess all the virtues in this
perfection. For, to live contrary to virtue is to live in sin; for Christ
says: He that is not with Me is against Me. Whosoever is not humble, he is
proud; and whosoever is proud and not humble does not belong to God. And
thus it is with all the sins and all the virtues; either a man has the
virtue and lives in grace, or else he has its opposite and lives in sin. Let
each man try himself, and live according to that which has here been shown.
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CHAPTER XXVI
OF THE DESIRE TO KNOW THE BRIDEGROOM IN HIS NATURE
A Man who lives this life in its perfection, as it has here been shown, and
who is offering up his whole life, and all his works, to the worship and
praise of God, and who wills and loves God above all things, is often
stirred by a desire to see, to know, and to prove what, in Himself, this
Bridegroom Christ is; Who for man’s sake became man and laboured in love
unto death, and delivered us from sin and the devil, and has given us
Himself and His grace, and left us His sacraments, and has promised us His
kingdom and Himself as an eternal wage; Who also gives us all that is
needful for the body, and inward consolation and sweetness, and innumerable
gifts of all kinds, according to the needs of each.
When a man beholds all this, he feels an unmeasured impulse to see Christ
his Bridegroom, and to know Him as He is in Himself. Though he knows Him in
His works, this does not seem to him enough. Then he must do as the publican
Zaccheus did, who longed to see Jesus, who He was. He must run before the
crowd, that is the multiplicity of creatures; for these make us so little
and so low that we cannot see God. And he must climb up into the tree of
faith, which grows from above downwards, for its roots are in the Godhead.
This tree has twelve branches, which are the twelve articles of faith. The
lower speak of the Divine Humanity, and of those things which belong to our
salvation of soul and of body. The upper part of the tree tells of the
Godhead, of the Trinity of Persons, and of the Unity of the Nature of God.
And the man must cling to that unity, in the highest part of the tree; for
there it is that Jesus must pass with all His gifts.
Here comes Jesus, and sees the man, and shows to him, in the light of faith,
that He is according to His Godhead immeasurable and incomprehensible and
inaccessible and abysmal, transcending every created light and every finite
conception. And this is the highest knowledge of God which any man may have
in the active life: that he should confess in this light of faith that God
is incomprehensible and unknowable. And in this light Christ says to man’s
desire: Make haste and come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house. This
hasty descent, to which he is summoned by God, is nothing else than a
descent through desire and through love into the abyss of the Godhead, which
no intelligence can reach in the created light. But where intelligence
remains without, desire and love go in. When the soul is thus stretched
towards God, by intention and by love, above everything that it can
understand, then it rests and dwells in God, and God in it. When the soul
climbs with desire above the multiplicity of creatures, and above the works
of the senses, and above the light of nature, then it meets Christ in the
light of faith, and becomes enlightened, and confesses that God is
unknowable and incomprehensible. When it stretches itself with longing
towards this incomprehensible God, then it meets Christ, and is filled with
His gifts. And when it loves and rests above all gifts, and above itself,
and above all creatures, then it dwells in God, and God dwells in it.
This is the way in which we shall meet Christ on the summit of the active
life. When you have laid the foundation of righteousness, charity, and
humility; and have established on it a dwelling-place, that is, those
virtues which have been named heretofore; and have met Christ through faith,
by intention and by love; then you dwell in God and God dwells in you, and
you possess the true active life.
And this was the first of which we would speak.
The end of the first book
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HERE BEGINS
THE SECOND BOOK
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PROLOGUE
The wise virgin, that is the pure soul, having abandoned earthly things, and
living according to the virtues for God, has taken in the vessel of her
heart the oil of charity and of godly deeds, with the lamp of an unsullied
conscience. But when Christ the Bridegroom tarries with His consolations,
and the renewed inpouring of His gifts, the soul becomes drowsy, sleepy, and
inert. Then, at midnight, when it is least expected, a ghostly cry is made
within the soul: Behold, the Bridegroom, cometh, go ye out to meet Him. Of
this beholding, and of the inward coming of Christ, and of a man’s ghostly
going out, and of his meeting with Christ; of these four points we will now
speak, and we will explain and apply them according to an inward, lofty,
God-desiring life, which all cannot reach, but which many men attain through
the moral virtues and inward zeal.
By these words Christ teaches us four things. First, that He wills that our
understanding should be enlightened by supernatural light; this we learn
from the word which He speaks: Behold. Secondly, He shows us what we ought
to see: namely, the inward coming of our Bridegroom, the Eternal Truth; this
we understand from His saying: The Bridegroom cometh. Thirdly, He commands
us to go out through inward exercises according to righteousness; for this
reason He says: Go ye out. And, by the fourth point, He shows us the end and
the aim of the whole; that is, the meeting with our Bridegroom Christ, in
the fruitive unity of the Godhead.
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CHAPTER I
HOW WE ACHIEVE SUPERNATURAL SIGHT IN OUR INWARD WORKINGS
Now concerning the first point. Christ says: Behold. Whosoever wishes to see
in a supernatural way in his inward exercises must have three things. The
first is the light of Divine grace, and this in a more lofty degree than
that which we can experience in the outward and active life without earnest
inward diligence. The second thing is the casting out of all distracting
images and attachments from the heart; so that the man may be free and
imageless, released from all attachments, and empty of all creatures. The
third thing is a free turning of the will, with a gathering together of all
our powers, both bodily and ghostly, cleansed from every inordinate love.
Thereby the will flows forth into the unity of God and into the unity of the
mind; and thus the rational creature may obtain and possess the most high
unity of God in a supernatural manner. For this God has created heaven and
earth and everything; and for this reason He became man, and taught us, and
lived for our sake, and has Himself become the Way to the unity. And He died
in the bonds of love, and has ascended and has opened to us that very unity,
in which we may possess eternal bliss.
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CHAPTER II
OF A THREE-FOLD UNITY WHICH IS IN US BY NATURE
Now mark this with diligence: a threefold unity is found in all men by
nature, and also in all good men according to a supernatural manner.
The first and highest unity of man is in God; for all creatures depend upon
this unity for their being, their life, and their preservation; and if they
be separated in this wise from God, they fall into the nothingness and
become nought. This unity is in us essentially, by nature, whether we be
good or evil. And without our own working it makes us neither holy nor
blessed. This unity we possess within us and yet above us, as the ground and
the preserver of our being and of our life.
The second unity or union is also in us by nature. It is the unity of our
higher powers; forasmuch as these spring naturally as active powers from the
unity of the mind or of the spirit. This is that same unity which depends
upon God; but with this difference, that here it is active and there
essential. Nevertheless, the spirit is wholly and perfectly understood
according to the fulness of its substance, in each unity. This unity we
possess within us, above our senses; and from it there proceed memory,
understanding, and will, and all the powers of ghostly action. In this
unity, the soul is called “spirit.”
The third unity which is in us by nature is the source of all the bodily
powers, in the unity of the heart; origin and beginning of the bodily life.
This unity the soul possesses in the body and in the quickening centre of
the heart, and therefrom flow forth all bodily activities, and the five
senses. And therein the soul is called “soul”; for it is the forming
principle of the body, and quickens this carcase; that is, gives it life and
keeps it therein.
These three unities abide in man by nature as one life and one kingdom. In
the lowest we are sensible and animal; in the middle we are rational and
spiritual; and in the highest we are kept according to our essence. And thus
are all men by nature.
Now these three unities, as one kingdom and one eternal dwelling-place, are
adorned and inhabited in a supernatural way by the moral virtues through
charity and the active life. And they are still more gloriously adorned and
more excellently perfected by inward exercises united with a spiritual life.
But they are most gloriously and blessedly adorned by a supernatural and
contemplative life.
The lowest unity, being of the body, is supernaturally adorned and perfected
through outward works and moral perfection, according to the way of Christ
and His saints: and through bearing the cross with Christ, and through
subordinating nature discreetly according to its powers to the commandments
of Holy Church and to the doctrines of the saints.
The second unity, being in the spirit and wholly spiritual, is
supernaturally adorned and perfected through the three divine virtues,
Faith, Hope, and Charity; and through the inflow of the grace and the gifts
of God; and through a good-will to follow the examples of Christ and Holy
Christendom in all virtues.
The third and highest unity is above the comprehension of our reason, and
yet essentially within us. We possess it in a supernatural way when in all
our works of virtue we have in mind the praise and glory of God, and above
all aims, above ourselves, and above all things would rest only in Him. This
is that unity wherefrom we have come forth as creatures, and wherein,
according to our being, we are at home. And by means of the virtues here
named, these three unities are adorned in the active life.
Now we will show how these three unities are more highly adorned and more
nobly fostered through an inward exercise joined to the active life.
Whenever a man, because of his charity and his upright intention, lifts
himself up with all his works and with his whole life toward the glory and
the praise of God, ever seeking to rest in God above all things: then, in
humble patience and self-surrender, yet with a sure trust, he will await new
riches and new gifts, but without anxiety as to whether it be God’s good
pleasure to give or not to give.
In this way one prepares and makes oneself ready to enter on the inward and
God-desiring life. And, when the vessel is made ready, then the noble
vintage is poured into it. And there is no vessel more noble than the loving
soul, neither a vintage more wholesome than the grace of God. So a man
should devote all his acts and all life to God, with a simple and upright
intention directed to God; and should rest, above intentions, and above
himself, and above all things in that most high unity, in which God and the
loving spirit are united without intermediary.
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CHAPTER III
OF THE INFLOW OF THE GRACE OF GOD INTO OUR SPIRIT
From this unity, wherein the spirit is united with God without intermediary,
grace and all gifts flow forth: and out of this same unity, where the spirit
rests above itself in God, Christ the Eternal Truth says: Behold, The
Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him. Christ, who is the light of
Eternal Truth, says: Behold: for through Him we become seeing; for He is the
light of the Father, and without Him there were no light, neither in heaven
nor on earth. This speaking of Christ within us is nothing else than an
inrush of His light and His grace. This grace pours into us in the unity of
our higher powers and of our spirit; wherefrom, through the power of the
grace received, the higher powers flow out to become active in all virtues,
and whereto, because of the bond of love, they ever return again.
In this unity lie the power for, and beginning and end of, every natural and
supernatural work of the creature in so far as it is wrought in a creaturely
way, through grace and Divine gifts, and by the creature’s own strength. And
therefore God pours His grace into the unity of the higher powers, that
therewith man may always fulfil the virtues, through the power and the
richness and the thrust of grace. For God gives us grace, therewith to work;
and above all graces He gives Himself, for fruition and for rest. The unity
of our spirit is our dwelling-place, in the peace of God and in the riches
of charity; and there all the manifold virtues are gathered together, and
live in the simplicity of the spirit.
Now the grace of God, pouring forth from God, is an inward thrust and urge
of the Holy Ghost, driving forth our spirit from within and exciting it
towards all virtues. This grace flows from within, and not from without; for
God is more inward to us than we are to ourselves, and His inward thrust or
working within us, be it natural or supernatural, is nearer to us and more
intimate to us, than our own working is. And therefore God works in us from
within outwards; but all creatures work from without inwards. And thus it is
that grace, and all the gifts of God, and the Voice of God, come from
within, in the unity of our spirit; and not from without, into the
imagination, by means of sensible images.
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CHAPTER IV
SHOWING HOW WE SHOULD FOUND OUR INWARD LIFE ON A FREEDOM FROM IMAGES
Now Christ says in ghostly wise in the man who is turned within: Behold.
Three things, as I have said, make a man seeing in his inward exercise. The
first is a shining forth of the grace of God. The grace of God in a soul is
like a candle in a lantern or in a glass vessel; for it enlightens, and
brightens, and shines through, the vessel, that is, the righteous man. And
it manifests itself to the man who has it within him, if he be observant of
himself. And it manifests itself through him, to other men, in virtues and
in good example. This flash of divine grace inwardly stirs and moves a man
with swiftness, and this swift movement is the first thing which makes us
see. Of this swift movement of God there springs from the side of man the
second thing, which is a gathering together of all inward and outward powers
in the unity of the spirit, in the bonds of love. The third point is the
freedom which allows the man to turn inwards, without hindrance from
sensible images, as often as he wills and thinks upon his God. This means
that a man must be indifferent to gladness and grief, profit and loss,
rising and falling, to strange cares, to delight and to dread, and never be
attached to any creature. These three things make a man seeing in his inward
exercise. If you have these three, you have the foundation and the beginning
of the inward practice and the inward life. [42]
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[42] The three points here described—the enlightenment or impulse of grace,
concentration of mind, and the deliberate expulsion of distracting thoughts
and images—are summed up in the exercise which ascetic writers call
Recollection, and which prepares consciousness for the contemplative state.
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CHAPTER V
OF A THREE-FOLD COMING OF OUR LORD IN THE INWARD MAN
Even though the eye be clear and the sight keen, if there were no loveworthy
and desirable object, clearness of sight would neither please nor profit a
man. And this is why Christ shows to the enlightened eyes of the
understanding what they shall see, to wit, the inward coming of Christ their
Bridegroom.
Three ways of this special inward coming of God are found in those men who
exercise themselves with devotion in the inward life; and each of these
three comings raises a man to a higher degree and to a more inward exercise.
The first coming of Christ in inward working drives and urges a man in his
inward feeling; it draws him with all his powers upwards to heaven, and it
calls him to unite himself with God. This driving and drawing we feel in the
heart, and in the unity of all the bodily powers, and especially in the
desirous power. For this coming stirs, and works in, the lower part of man;
for this must be wholly purged and adorned, and inflamed and drawn inwards.
This inward urge of God gives and takes, makes rich and poor, brings weal
and woe upon a man; it causes hope and despair; it burns and it freezes. But
no tongue can tell of those gifts and works and contraries that here come to
pass.
This coming with its working is parted into four degrees, each one higher
than the other, as we will show afterwards. And with it the lower part of
man is adorned in the inward life.
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CHAPTER VI
OF THE SECOND COMING OF OUR LORD IN THE INWARD MAN
The second way in which Christ comes inwardly, with a higher nobleness, more
after His likeness, with increased gifts, and with a greater radiance, is a
pouring forth of the riches of His Divine gifts into the higher powers of
the soul, whereby the spirit is strengthened, enlightened, and enriched in
many ways. This streaming of God into us demands of us a flowing out and a
flowing back, with all these riches, into that same Source from which that
torrent has flowed. And in this torrent God gives to us and shows to us
great wonders; but He asks back from the soul all His gifts, increased
beyond anything that any creature could accomplish. This exercise and this
way is more noble and more like unto God than the first; and by it the three
higher powers of the soul are adorned.
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CHAPTER VII
OF THE THIRD COMING OF OUR LORD
The third way in which our Lord comes inwardly is by an inward stirring or
touch in the unity of the spirit, wherein are the higher powers of the soul;
wherefrom they flow forth, and to which they return again, and with which
they always remain united in the bonds of love and through the natural unity
of the spirit. In this coming consists the highest and most interior
condition of the inward life; and by it the unity of the spirit is adorned
in many ways.
Now, in each coming, Christ desires of us a special going out of ourselves,
toward a life that shall accord with the way of His coming. And therefore He
says in ghostly wise within our hearts at each coming: Go ye out in your
lives and in your practices in the way in which My graces and My gifts shall
urge you. For according to the manner and way in which the Spirit of God
urges, and drives, and draws, and streams into us, and stirs us; in this way
we must go out and progress in our inward practices, if we are to become
perfect. But if we withstand the Spirit of God by a life that does not
accord with it, we lose that inward urge, and then the virtues will depart
from us.
These are the three comings of Christ, in inward exercises. We will now
explain and set forth each coming separately. Attend therefore with
diligence; for he who never has himself felt or experienced this he shall
not easily understand it.
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CHAPTER VIII
HOW THE FIRST COMING HAS FOUR DEGREES
The first coming of Christ in the exercise of desire is, as we have said, an
inward and sensible thrust of the Holy Ghost, urging and driving us towards
all virtues. This coming may be likened to the splendour and the power of
the sun, which, from the moment when it rises, enlightens and brightens and
warms the whole world. [43] So likewise Christ, the eternal Sun, beams and
shines, dwelling above the summit of the spirit; and enlightens and
enkindles the lowest part of man, namely, the fleshly heart and the sensible
powers. And this happens in a moment of time, shorter than the twinkling of
an eye; for God’s work is swift. But that man in whom this should take place
must be inwardly seeing, with the eyes of the understanding.
In the higher lands, in the middle region of the world, the sun shines upon
the mountains, bringing an early summer there, with good fruits and strong
wine, and filling that land with joy. The same sun gives its splendour to
the lower lands, at the utmost part of the earth. There the country is
colder, and the power of the heat less; nevertheless, there too it produces
many good fruits, though little wine. The men who dwell in the lower parts
of themselves, in their outward senses, yet with a good intention, in moral
virtues, in outward work, and in the grace of God: they too produce the good
fruits of virtue, in great numbers and in many ways; but of the wine of
inward joy and ghostly consolation they taste little.
Now the man who wishes to feel within himself the glow of the Eternal Sun,
which is Christ Himself, he should be seeing, and should dwell on the
mountains in the higher lands, by a gathering together of all his powers,
and lifting up his heart towards God, free and careless of joy and grief,
and of all created things. There Christ, the Sun of righteousness, shines
upon the free and uplifted heart: and these are the mountains that I mean.
Christ, the glorious Sun, the Divine Brightness, by His inward coming and by
the power of His Spirit, enlightens and brightens and enkindles the free
heart and all the powers of the soul. And this is the first work of the
inward coming in the exercise of desire. Like as the power and the nature of
fire enkindles everything which is offered to the flames, so Christ, by the
fiery ardour of His inward coming, enkindles every ready, free and uplifted
heart; and in this coming He says: Go ye out by exercises according to the
way of this coming.
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[43] The source of this image seems to be a well-known passage in Dionysius
the Areopagite— “That brilliant likeness of the Divine Goodness, our great
sun, all-radiant and ever-shining as a distant echo of the Good, enlightens
all capable of receiving light . . . pouring upon the universe above and
beneath the splendour of its rays. And if anything does not share in them
this is not because of any lack in its distribution of light, but because of
the inaptitude for light of those things which do not unfold themselves that
they may participate in the light.” (Divine Names, cap. 4.)
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CHAPTER IX
OF UNITY OF HEART
Of this ardour there springs unity of heart; for we cannot achieve true
unity unless the Spirit of God blows to a flame His fire in our hearts. For
this fire makes one with itself and like to itself all that it can master
and re-shape.
Unity is this: that a man feel himself to be gathered together with all his
powers in the unity of his heart. Unity brings inward peace and restfulness
of heart. Unity of heart is a bond which draws together body and soul, heart
and senses, and all the outward and inward powers and encloses them in the
union of love.
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CHAPTER X
OF INWARDNESS
From this unity springs inwardness; for none can be inward save him who is
gathered together in unity within himself. Inwardness means that a man is
turned within, into his own heart, that thereby he may understand and feel
the interior workings, and the interior words of God. Inwardness is a
sensible fire of love, which the Spirit of God has blown to a flame, and
which urges a man from within; and he knows not whence it comes nor what has
befallen him.
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CHAPTER XI
OF SENSIBLE LOVE
From inwardness there springs a sensible love, which fulfills the man’s
heart and the desirous power of the soul. This yearning love, and this
sensible fruition of the heart, none can have save he who is inward of
heart.
Sensible love is a yearning and savouring delight which we feel in God as
the eternal Good, wherein are all other goods. Sensible love forsakes all
creatures as regards pleasure, not as regards need. Inward love feels itself
moved from within by the Eternal Love; and this it must ever cherish. Inward
love easily foregoes and despises all things that it may obtain that which
it loves.
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CHAPTER XII
OF DEVOTION
Of this sensible love is born devotion to God and to His glory. For none can
have within his heart the hunger of devotion save him who bears within
himself a sensible love of God. Where the fire of love sends up the flames
of its desire to heaven, there is devotion. Devotion moves and draws a man,
both from without and from within, towards the service of God. Devotion
makes body and soul to blossom in nobility and worth before God and before
all men. Devotion is demanded of us by God in every service which we ought
to do to Him. Devotion purifies the body and the soul of everything that can
stop and hinder us. Devotion shows and bestows the right way at blessedness.
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CHAPTER XIII
OF GRATITUDE
Inward devotion often brings forth gratitude; for none can thank and praise
God so well as the inward and devout man. And it is just that we should
thank and praise God, because He has created us as reasonable creatures, and
has ordained and destined heaven and earth and the angels to our service;
and because He became man for our sins, and taught us, and lived for our
sake, and showed us the way; and because He has ministered to us in humble
raiment, and suffered an ignominous death for the love of us, and promised
us His eternal kingdom and Himself also for our reward and for our wage. And
He has spared us in our sins, and has forgiven us or will forgive us; and
has poured His grace and His love into our souls, and will dwell and remain
with us, and in us, throughout eternity. And He has visited us and will
visit us all the days of our lives with His noble sacraments, according to
the need of each, and has left us His Flesh and His Blood for food and
drink, according to the desire and the hunger of each; and has set before us
nature and the Scriptures and all creatures, as examples, and as a mirror,
that therein we may look and learn how we may turn all our deeds to works of
virtue; and has given us health and strength and power, and sometimes for
our own good has sent us sickness; and in outward need has established
inward peace and happiness in us; and has caused us to be called by
Christian names and to have been born of Christian parents. For all these
things we should thank God here on earth, that hereafter we may thank Him in
eternity.
We should also praise God by means of everything that we can offer to Him.
To praise God, means that all his life long a man glorifies, reverences and
venerates the Divine Omnipotence. The praise of God is the meet and proper
work of the angels and the saints in heaven, and of loving men on earth. God
should be praised by desire, by the lifting up of all our powers, by words,
by works, with body and with soul, and faith whatsoever one possesses; in
humble service, from without and from within. He who does not praise God
while here on earth shall in eternity be dumb. To praise God is the dearest
and most joyous work of every loving heart; and the heart which is full of
praise desires that every creature should praise God. The praise of God has
no end, for it is our bliss; and most justly shall we praise Him in
eternity.
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CHAPTER XIV
OF TWO GRIEFS WHICH ARISE FROM INWARD GRATITUDE
From inward gratitude and praise there arises a two fold grief of the heart
and torment of desire. The first grief is, that we feel ourselves to lag
behind in thanking, praising, glorifying and serving God. The second is,
that we do not grow in charity, in virtue, in faith, and in perfect
behaviour as much as we desire, that we may become worthy to thank and
praise and serve God as it is proper to do. This is the second grief. These
two are root and fruit, beginning and end, of all inward virtues.
Inward grief and pain for our shortcomings in virtue and the praise of God,
is the highest effect of this first degree of the inward exercise; and by it
this degree is perfectly achieved.
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CHAPTER XV
A SIMILITUDE HOW WE SHOULD PERFORM THE FIRST DEGREE OF OUR INWARD EXERCISE
Now consider in a similitude, how this inward exercise should be performed.
When the natural fire has by its heat and power stirred water, or some other
liquid, until it bubbles up; then this is its highest achievement. Then the
water boils up and falls down to the bottom, and is then stirred again to
the same activity by the power of the fire: so that the water is incessantly
bubbling up, and the fire incessantly stirring it.
And so likewise works the inward fire of the Holy Ghost. It stirs and goads
and drives the heart and all the powers of the soul until they boil; that
is, until they thank and praise God in the way of which I have told you. And
then one falls down to that very ground, where the Spirit of God is burning.
So that the fire of love ever burns, and the man’s heart ever thanks and
praises God with words and with works and yet always abides in lowliness;
esteeming that which he should do and would do to be great, and that which
he is able to do to be small.
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CHAPTER XVI
ANOTHER SIMILITUDE CONCERNING THE SAME EXERCISE
When summer draws near and the sun rises higher, it draws the moisture out
of the earth through the roots, and through the trunks of the trees, into
the twigs; and hence come foliage, flower, and fruit.
So likewise, when Christ the Eternal Sun rises and ascends in our hearts, so
that it is summer in the adornment of our virtues, He gives His light and
His heat to our desires, and draws the heart from all the multiplicity of
earthly things, and brings about unity and inwardness; and makes the heart
grow and bring forth the leaves of inward love, the flowers of ardent
devotion, and the fruits of thanksgiving and praise, and makes these fruits
to endure eternally, in humble grief, because of our shortcomings.
Here ends the first of the four chief degrees of that inward working whereby
the lowest part of man is adorned.
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CHAPTER XVII
OF THE SECOND DEGREE OF OUR INWARD EXERCISE, WHICH INCREASES INWARDNESS BY
HUMILITY
But, having likened the four degrees of the first coming of Christ to the
splendour and the power of the sun, we also find in the sun another power
and another action, which hastens the ripening, and increases the numbers,
of the fruit.
When the sun rises very high, and enters the sign of Gemini (that is, the
Twins; or a twofold thing of one nature), which happens in the middle of the
month of May: then it has a double power over flowers and herbs and
everything that grows out of the earth. If, then, the planets which govern
nature are well ordered according to the need of the season, the sun shines
upon the earth and draws the moisture into the air. Thence come dew and
rain; and the fruits increase and multiply.
So likewise, when Christ that bright Sun has risen in our hearts above all
things; when the demands of our bodily nature which are opposed to the
spirit have been curbed and discreetly set in order; when we have achieved
the virtues in the way of which you have heard in the first degree; when,
lastly, through the ardour of our charity, all the pleasure, and all the
peace, which we experience in these virtues, have been offered up and
devoted to God, with thanksgiving and praise:—then, of all this there may
come down a sweet rain of new inward consolation and the heavenly dew of the
sweetness of God. This makes the virtues grow, and multiplies them twofold
if we hinder it not. This is a new and special working, and a new coming, of
Christ into the loving heart. And by it a man is lifted up into a higher
state than that in which he was before. On this height Christ says: Go ye
out according to the way of this coming.
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CHAPTER XVIII
OF THE PURE DELIGHT OF THE HEART AND THE SENSIBLE POWERS
From this sweetness there springs a well-being of the heart and of all the
bodily powers, so that a man thinks himself to be inwardly enfolded in the
divine embrace of love. This delight and this consolation are greater and
more pleasant to the soul and the body than all the satisfactions of the
earth, even though one man should enjoy them all together. In this
well-being God sinks into the heart by means of His gifts; with so much
savoury solace and joy that the heart overflows from within. This makes a
man comprehend the misery of those who live outside love. This well-being
melts the heart to such a degree, that the man cannot contain himself
through the fulness of inward joy.
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CHAPTER XIX
OF SPIRITUAL INEBRIATION
From this rapturous delight [44] springs spiritual inebriation. Spiritual
inebriation is this; that a man receives more sensible joy and sweetness
than his heart can either contain or desire. Spiritual inebriation brings
forth many strange gestures in men. It makes some sing and praise God
because of their fulness of joy, and some weep with great tears because of
their sweetness of heart. It makes one restless in all his limbs, so that he
must run and jump and dance; and so excites another that he must gesticulate
and clap his hands. Another cries out with a loud voice, and so shows forth
the plenitude he feels within; another must be silent and melt away, because
of the rapture which he feels in all his senses. At times he thinks that all
the world must feel what he feels: at times he thinks that none can taste
what he has attained. Often he thinks that he never could, nor ever shall,
lose this well-being; at times he wonders why all men do not become
God-desiring. At one time he thinks that God is for him alone, or for none
other so much as for him; at another time he asks himself with amazement of
what nature these delights can be, and whence they come, and what has
happened to him. This is the most rapturous life (as regards our bodily
feelings) which man may attain upon earth. Sometimes the excess of joy
becomes so great that the man thinks that his heart must break. And for all
these manifold gifts and miraculous works, he shall, with a humble heart,
thank and praise and honour and reverence the Lord, Who can do all this; and
thank Him with fervent devotion because it is His will to do all this. And
the man shall always keep in his heart and speak through his mouth with
sincere intention: “Lord, I am not worthy of this; yet I have need of Thy
boundless goodness and of Thy support.” In such humility he may grow and
rise into higher virtues.
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[44] The word “weelden,” here translated “rapturous delight,” really means a
luxury of enjoyment: an overpassing and voluptuous rapture, in which the
soul partakes of the rich content of God.
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CHAPTER XX
WHAT MAY HINDER A MAN IN THIS INEBRIATION
When, however, this coming and this degree are granted to such men as first
begin to turn from the world; even though their conversion be perfect, and
they have abandoned all worldly consolation, that they may be wholly God’s,
and may live altogether for Him,—yet they are still feeble and have need of
milk and sweet things, and not of the strong food of fierce temptation and
the loss of God. And in this season, that is to say, in this state,
hoar-frost and fog often harm such men; for it is just in the middle of May
according to the course of the inward life. Hoar-frost is the desire to be
somewhat or the belief that one is somewhat; or to be attached to one’s
self, or to suppose that we have earned these consolations and are worthy of
them. This is hoar-frost, which may destroy the flowers and fruits of all
the virtues. Fog is, the desire to rest in inward consolations and
sweetness. This darkens the air of the reason; and the powers, which ought
to open and flower, close again. And thereby one loses the knowledge of
truth, and yet may keep a certain false sweetness, which is given by the
devil, and which in the end shall lead us astray.
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CHAPTER XXI
A SIMILITUDE HOW A MAN SHOULD ACT AND BEAR HIMSELF IN THIS CASE
Now I will give you a short similitude, that you may not err in this case,
but may govern yourselves prudently. You should watch the wise bee and do as
it does. It dwells in unity, in the congregation of its fellows, and goes
forth, not in the storm, but in calm and still weather, in the sunshine,
towards all those flowers in which sweetness may be found. It does not rest
on any flower, neither on any beauty nor on any sweetness; but it draws from
them honey and wax, that is to say, sweetness and light-giving matter, and
brings both to the unity of the hive, that therewith it may produce fruits,
and be greatly profitable. Christ, the Eternal Sun, shining into the open
heart, causes that heart to grow and to bloom, and it overflows with all the
inward powers with joy and sweetness.
So the wise man will do like the bee, and he will fly forth with attention
and with reason and with discretion, towards all those gifts and towards all
that sweetness which he has ever experienced, and towards all the good which
God has ever done to him. And in the light of love and with inward
observation, he will taste of the multitude of consolations and good things;
and will not rest upon any flower of the gifts of God, but, laden with
gratitude and praise, will fly back into the unity, wherein he wishes to
rest and to dwell eternally with God.
This is the second degree of that inward working which adorns the lower part
of man in many ways.
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CHAPTER XXII
OF THE THIRD DEGREE OF THE SPIRITUAL COMING OF CHRIST
When the sun has risen in the heavens as high as it can, it stands in the
sign of Cancer (which means Crab, because it cannot go further, but begins
to go back). Then come the fiercest heats of the whole year. And the sun
draws up all the moisture, and the earth becomes dry, and the fruits ripen
quickly.
So likewise, when Christ, the Divine Sun, has risen to the zenith of our
hearts—that is, above all the gifts and consolations and sweetness which we
may receive from Him—so that we do not rest in any savours, how great soever
they be, which God may pour into our souls; if then, masters of ourselves,
we ever turn inwards, by the way which has been shown heretofore, with
humble praise and with fervent thanksgiving, towards the very source from
which all gifts flow forth according to the needs and the merits of each
creature: then Christ stands on high in the zenith of our hearts, and He
will draw all things, that is, all our powers, to Himself. When thus neither
savour nor consolation can overcome or hinder the loving heart, but it would
rather forgo all consolations and all gifts, that it may find Him Whom it
loves: then there arises from this the third kind of inward exercise, by
which man is uplifted and adorned in his sensibility and the lower part of
his being.
The first work of Christ, and the beginning of this degree consists in this:
that God draws the heart, the desires, and all the powers of the soul up
towards heaven, and calls them to be united with Him, and says in ghostly
wise within the heart: Go ye out of yourselves by the way in which I draw
and invite you. This drawing and this inviting I cannot well make plain to
gross and insensitive men; but it is an inward constraining and drawing of
the heart towards the most high unity of God. This inward summons is joyful
to the loving heart above anything it ever experienced before. For hence
arise a new way and a higher exercise.
Here the heart opens itself in joy and in desire, and all the veins gape,
and all the powers of the soul are in readiness, and desire to fulfil that
which is demanded of them by God and by His unity. This invitation is a
shining forth of Christ, the Eternal Sun; and it brings forth such great
pleasure and joy in the heart, and makes the heart open so widely, that it
can never wholly close again. And thereby a man is wounded in the heart from
within, and feels the wound of love. To be wounded by love is the sweetest
feeling and the sharpest pain which any one may endure. To be wounded by
love is to know for certain that one shall be healed; for the ghostly wound
brings woes and weal at the same time. For Christ, the true Sun streams and
shines into the wounded and open heart and calls it to oneness again. And
this renews the wound and all its pangs. [45]
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[45] The “wound of love” as a metaphor for the rapturous yet piercing
entrance of Divine Love into the heart, meets us again and again in the
literature of mysticism. “God,” says St Basil, “is the Perfect Beauty which
inflicts on the soul an ineffable wound of love.” In many cases, as for
instance in the celebrated “transverberation” of St Teresa, this image
probably describes one of those psycho-physical parallelisms—not uncommon in
the records of high religious experience—in which actual bodily pangs
accompany the spiritual crisis. Thus Richard Rolle says, “O thou everlasting
fairness, thou hast wounded my heart; scarcely I live for joy and almost I
die, for I may not in my deadly flesh suffer such a sweetness of this great
majesty.” (The Mending of Life, cap. 11.) Thus, too, St John of the Cross—
“O burn that burns to heal! O more than pleasant wound! And O soft hand, O
touch most delicate That dost new life reveal, That dost in grace abound,
And, slaying, dost from death to life translate.” (Llama de Amor Viva.
Trans. by Arthur Symons.)
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CHAPTER XXIII
OF THE PAIN AND RESTLESSNESS OF LOVE
Of this inward demand and this invitation, and also because the creature
lifts itself up and offers itself, and all that it can do, and yet can
neither attain nor acquire the unity—of these things spring a ghostly pain.
When the inmost part of the heart and the source of life have been wounded
by love, and one cannot obtain that which one desires above all things, but
must ever abide where one does not wish to be: from these two things pain
comes forth. Here Christ is risen to the zenith of the conscience, and He
sends His Divine rays into the hungry desires and into the longings of the
heart; and this splendour burns and dries up and consumes all the moisture,
that is, the strength and the powers of nature. The desire of the open
heart, and the shining of the Divine rays, cause a perpetual pain.
If, then, one cannot achieve God and yet cannot and will not do without Him,
from these two things there arise in such men tumult and restlessness, both
without and within. And so long as a man is thus agitated, no creature,
neither in heaven nor on earth, can give him rest or help him. In this state
there are sometimes spoken from within sublime and salutary words, and
singular teachings and wisdom are given. In this inward tumult one is ready
to suffer all that can be suffered, that one may obtain that which one
loves. This fury of love is an inward impatience which will hardly use
reason or follow it, if it cannot obtain that which it loves. This inward
fury eats a man’s heart and drinks his blood. Here the sensible heat of love
is fiercer than at any other stage in man’s whole life; and his bodily
nature is secretly wounded and consumed without any outward work, and the
fruits of the virtues ripen more quickly than in all the degrees which have
been shown heretofore.
In the like season of the year, the visible sun enters the sign of Leo, that
is, the Lion, who is fierce by nature, for he is the lord over all beasts.
So likewise, when a man comes to this way, Christ, the bright Sun, stands in
the sign of the Lion, for the rays of His heat are so fierce that the blood
in the heart of the impatient man must boil. And when this fierce way
prevails, it masters and subdues all other ways and works; for it wills to
be wayless, that is, without manner. And in this tumult a man sometimes
falls into a desire and restless longing to be freed from the prison of his
body, so that he may at once be united with Him Whom he loves. And he opens
his inward eyes and beholds the heavenly house full of glory and joy, and
his Beloved crowned in the midst of it, flowing forth towards His saints in
abounding bliss; whilst he must lack all this. And therefrom there often
spring in such a man outward tears and great longings. He looks down and
considers the place of exile in which he has been imprisoned, and from which
he cannot escape; then tears of sadness and misery gush forth. These natural
tears soothe and refresh the man’s heart, and they are wholesome to the
bodily nature, preserving its strength and powers and sustaining him through
this state of tumult. All the manifold considerations and exercises
according to ways or manner are helpful to the impatient man; that his
strength may be preserved and that he may long endure in virtue.
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CHAPTER XXIV
OF ECSTACIES AND DIVINE REVELATIONS
By this fierce ardour and this impatience some men are at times caught into
the spirit, above the senses; and there words are spoken to them and images
and similitudes shown to them, teaching them some truth of which they or
other men have need, or else things that are to come. These are called
revelations or visions. If they are bodily images, they are received in the
imagination. This may be the work of an angel in man, through the power of
God. If it be an intellectual truth, or a ghostly image, through which God
reveals Himself in His unfathomableness, this is received in the
understanding; and the man can clothe it in words in so far as it can be
expressed in words. Sometimes a man may also be drawn above himself and
above the spirit (but not altogether outside himself) into an
Incomprehensible Good, which he shall never be able either to utter or to
explain in the way in which he heard and saw; for in this simple act and
this simple vision, to hear and to see are one. And none can work this in
man, without intermediary and without the co-operation of any creature, save
God alone. It is called Raptus; which means, rapt away, or uplifted, or
carried away. At times God grants to such men a sudden spiritual glimpse,
like the lightning in the sky. It comes like a sudden glimpse of strange
brightness, shining forth from the Simple Nudity. And thereby for an instant
the spirit is raised above itself; but the light passes at once and the man
returns to himself again. This is the work of God Himself; it is something
very sublime; for those to whom it happens often become illuminated men.
Other things sometimes happen to those who live in the fierce ardour of
love; for often another light shines into them, and this is the work of God
through means. In this light the heart and the desirous powers uplift
themselves towards that light; and, in the meeting with that light, the joy
and the satisfaction are so great that the heart cannot contain them, but
breaks out in a loud voice with cries of joy. And this is called the
Jubilus, or jubilation; that is, a joy which cannot be uttered in words.
[46] And one cannot contain oneself; but if one would go out with an opened
and uplifted heart to meet this light the voice must follow, so long as this
exercise and this light endure. Some inward men are at times taught in a
dream by their guardian angels or by other angels, concerning many things of
which they have need. Some men too are found who have many sudden
intuitions, or inspirations, or imaginations, and also have miraculous
dreams, and yet remain in their outward senses. But these know nothing of
the tumult of love; for they dwell in outward multiplicity, and love has not
wounded them. These things may be natural, or they may come from the devil,
or from good angels, and therefore we may have faith in them so far as they
accord with Holy Writ, and with the truth, but no more. If we trust them
beyond this, we may easily be deceived. [47]
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[46] The Jubilus, or inarticulate song of joy, was recognised by medieval
writers as a normal form of religious exaltation: there are many references
to it in mystical literature. Thus Jacopone da Tod“ in the poem, “O jubilo
del core”— “The Jubilus in fire awakes And straight the man must sing and
pray, His tongue in childish stammering shakes, Nor knows he what his lips
may say; He cannot quench nor hide away That sweetness pure and infinite.
“The Jubilus in flame is lit And straight the man must shout and sing; So
close to love his heart is knit He scarce can bear the honeyed sting; His
clamour and his cries must ring And shame for ever take its flight.” (Laude
76. Trans. by J. Beck.)
[47] This is the traditional Christian test for all visions and revelations.
Thus Richard of St. Victor, the source of so much of Ruysbroeck’s teaching,
says in a celebrated passage— “Even though you believe that you have been
taken up into the high mountain apart, even though you believe that you see
Christ transfigured, be not too ready to believe anything you see in Him or
hear from him, unless Moses and Elias run to meet Him. I hold all truth in
suspicion which Scripture does not confirm: nor do I receive Christ in His
glory unless Moses and Elias are talking with Him.” (Benjamin Minor, cap.
81.)
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CHAPTER XXV
AN EXAMPLE SHOWING HOW ONE IS HINDERED IN THIS EXERCISE
Now I will show you the hindrances and the dangers which he meets with who
dwells in the fury of love. In this time, as you have heard, the sun is in
the sign of the Lion; and this is the most unhealthy period of the year,
although it is fruitful; for here begin the dog-days, which bring many a
plague with them. Then the weather may become so unwholesome and so hot that
in some countries herbs and trees wither and shrivel, and in some waters the
fishes pine away and perish, and on the land men also sicken and die. And
this is not caused only by the sun, for then it would be the same
everywhere; in all countries and in all waters, and with all men. But the
cause of it is often the corruption and the disorder of the matter on which
the sun’s power works. So likewise it is when a man comes into this state of
impatience. He enters in truth into the dog-days, and the splendour of the
Divine rays burns so fiercely and so hotly from above, and the heart wounded
by love is so inflamed from within—since the ardour of affection and the
impatience of desire have been thus enkindled—that the man falls into
impatience and striving, even as a woman who labours in child-birth and
cannot be delivered. If the man then look steadfastly into his own wounded
heart, and at Him Whom he loves, these woes grow without ceasing. So greatly
does the torment increase that the man withers and shrivels in his bodily
nature, even as the trees in hot countries; and he dies in the fury of love,
and enters the kingdom of heaven without passing through purgatory. But
though he dies well who dies of love, as long as a tree may bear good fruit,
it should neither be felled nor uprooted. Sometimes God flows forth with
great sweetness into the turbulent heart. Then the heart swims in bliss, as
a fish in water; and the inmost ground of the heart burns in the fury of
love, even whilst it swims in delight in the gifts of God, because of the
blissful and impatient ardour of the loving heart itself. And to dwell long
in this degree consumes the bodily nature. All men who burn in the fury of
love must pine away in that state; but those who can govern themselves well
do not die. [48]
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[48] Rolle’s Fire of Love provides an apt commentary upon this chapter. Thus
he says of the devout and ardent lover who “burns in the fire of the Holy
Ghost”— “He utterly burns and longs for light while he thus fervently tastes
of things heavenly . . . as the seraphim, to whom he is like in loving mind,
he cries and says to his noble Lover, ‘Behold, loving I burn, greedily
desiring.’ Thus with fire untrowed and thirling flame the soul of a lover is
burned. It gladdens all things and heavenlike sparkles: nor happily do I
long to make an end, but, always going to that which I love, death to me is
sweet and sicker.” (Incendium Amoris, I., cap. 14.)
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CHAPTER XXVI
ANOTHER EXAMPLE
And now I will warn you against another thing which may cause great harm.
Sometimes in that hot season there falls the honey-dew of a certain false
sweetness, which pollutes the fruit, or utterly spoils it. And it is most
apt to fall at noon, in bright sunshine, and in big drops; and it is hardly
to be distinguished from rain. So likewise, some men may be robbed of their
outward senses by a certain light produced by the devil. And in this light
they are enwrapped and ensnared, and at the same time many kinds of images,
both false and true, are shown to them, and they are spoken to in diverse
ways; and all this is seen and received of them with great delight. And here
there fall sometimes the honey-drops of a false sweetness, in which a man
may find his pleasure. He who esteems it much receives much of it: and
thereby the man is easily polluted, for if he will hold for true those
things which are not like to truth, for the reason that they have been shown
or spoken to him, he falls into error and the fruit of virtue is lost. But
those who have trodden the ways whereof I have written before, though they
may be tempted by this spirit and this light, they will recognise them and
will not be harmed.
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CHAPTER XXVII
A PARABLE OF THE ANT
A brief parable I will give to those who dwell in the tumult of love, that
they may endure this state nobly and becomingly, and may attain to higher
virtues. There is a small insect called the ant. It is strong and sagacious,
and very loth to die. It lives by choice amongst the congregation of its
fellows, in hot and dry soil. The ant works during summer, and gathers grain
for food for the winter. And it splits the grain in two lest it should
sprout and be spoiled, and be of no use when nothing can be gathered
anymore. And it seeks no strange ways, but always goes forth by the same
way. And if it abides its time, it shall be able to fly.
Thus should these men do. They should be strong in abiding the coming of
Christ, sagacious against the communications and inspirations of the devil.
They should not desire death; but God’s glory alone, and for themselves new
virtues. They should dwell in the congregation of their heart and of their
powers, and should follow the drawing and the inviting of the Divine Unity.
They should dwell in warm and dry soil, that is, in the fierce tumult of
love and in a great restlessness. And they should labour during the summer
of this life, and gather the fruits of virtue for eternity; and they should
split these fruits in two. The one part is, that they should ever desire the
most high fruition of Eternity; and the other part is that, by means of the
reason, they should always restrain themselves as much as they can, and
abide the time which God has ordained to them, and thus the fruit of virtue
is preserved unto eternity. And they should not follow strange paths or
singular ways; but they should follow the track of love through all storms
to that place whither love shall lead them. And if they abide the time, and
persevere in all virtues, they shall behold the Mystery of God and take
flight towards It.
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CHAPTER XXVIII
OF THE FOURTH DEGREE OF THE COMING OF CHRIST
Now we will speak further of the fourth manner of the coming of Christ,
uplifting and perfecting a man by inward exercise in the lower part of his
being. But having likened all the inward comings to the splendour of the
sun, and to its power, according to the course of the year, we will speak
further, according to the course of the seasons, of another action and
another work of the sun.
When the sun first begins to descend from the zenith to the nadir, it enters
the sign which is called Virgo, that is, the Virgin, because now the season
becomes unfruitful, as a virgin is. (In this time the glorious Virgin Mary,
the mother of Christ, ascended to heaven full of joy and rich in all
virtues.) At this time the heat begins to grow less; and men begin to gather
in, for use during the rest of the year, those ripe and lasting fruits which
can be kept and consumed long afterwards, such as corn and wine and the
durable fruits, which have now come to their maturity. And a part of the
same corn is sown, so that it be multiplied for the benefit of men. In this
season all the work of the sun of the whole year is perfected and fulfilled.
So likewise, when Christ the glorious Sun has risen to the zenith in a
man’s heart, as I have taught you in the third degree; and when He then
begins to descend and to hide the shining of His Divine rays and to forsake
the man; then the heat and impatience of love begin to grow less. Now when
Christ thus hides Himself, and withdraws the shining of His brightness and
His heat, this is the first work, and the new coming, of this degree. Then
Christ speaks in ghostly wise within this man, saying: “Go ye out in such
wise as I will now show you.” So the man goes out, and finds himself poor
and miserable and forsaken. Here all the tempest and fury and impatience of
love grow less, and the hot summer passes into autumn, and all its riches
are turned to great poverty. Then the man begins to complain because of his
wretchedness: Whither has gone the ardent love, the inwardness, the
gratitude, the joyful praise? And the inward consolation, the intimate joy,
the sensible savour, how has he lost them? How have the fierce tempest of
love, and all the other gifts which he felt before, become dead in him? And
he feels like an ignorant man who has lost all his pains and his labour. And
often his natural life is troubled by such a loss.
Sometimes these unhappy men are also deprived of their earthly goods, of
friends, of kinsmen; and they are abandoned of all creatures, their holiness
is not known or esteemed, men speak evil of their works and their whole
lives, and they are despised and rejected by all their neighbours. And at
times they fall into sickness and many a plague, and some into bodily
temptations; or, that which is worst of all, into temptations of the spirit.
From this poverty arise a fear lest one should fall, and a kind of
half-doubt. This is the utmost point at which a man can hold his ground
without falling into despair. Such a man likes to seek out good men, and to
complain to them, and show them his miseries; and he desires the help and
prayers of Holy Church and of all the just.
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CHAPTER XXIX
SHOWING WHAT THE FORSAKEN MAN SHOULD DO
Here the man should bethink himself with a humble heart that of his own he
has nothing but misery; and he should say in resignation and
self-abandonment the words which were spoken by the holy man Job: “The Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it hath been
done; blessed be the name of the Lord. And he should renounce himself in all
things, and should say and mean in his heart, “Lord, I am as willing to be
poor in all those things of which I have been deprived as I am ready to be
rich, O Lord, if it be Thy will and to Thy glory; not my will according to
nature, O Lord, but Thy will and my will according to spirit be done. For I
am Thine own, O Lord, and would as well be in hell as in heaven, if it were
to Thy glory. Lord, do unto me according to Thy good pleasure.” Of all this
suffering and abandonment the man should make an inward joy; and he should
give himself into the hands of God, and should be glad because he is able to
suffer for the glory of God. And if he be true to this disposition, he shall
taste such an inward joy as he never tasted before; for nothing is more
joyful to the lover of God, than to feel that he belongs wholly to his
Beloved. And if he has indeed followed the way of the virtues straight to
this degree, even though he has not passed through all the states which have
been pointed out heretofore, it is not needful, if he feels within himself
the source of the virtues: which is in activity, humble obedience; and, in
passivity, patient resignation. In these two things this degree is
established in everlasting surety.
In this season of the year the sun of heaven enters the sign of Libra, which
means the Scales; for day and night are evenly balanced, and the sun divides
the light from the darkness in equal parts. So likewise Christ stands in the
sign of the Balance for the resigned man. Whether He gives sweetness or
bitterness, darkness or light, whatever he lays upon the scale, the man
balances it evenly; all things are equal to him, save sin alone, which is
for ever cast out. When such utterly resigned men have thus been deprived of
all consolation, and believe that they have lost all virtues, and are
forsaken of God and of all creatures: then if they are able to reap them,
all kinds of fruit, the corn and vine, are ready and ripe. And this image
means, that all that the body can endure, whatsoever it be, should be
offered up to God gladly, and of one’s own free will, and without resistance
to the supreme Will. All the outward and inward virtues, which a man
practised with joy in the fire of love; these, since he knows them and is
able to perform them, he should now practise diligently and with courage,
and should offer them up to God. Never were they so dear to God; for never
were they so noble and so fair. All the consolations which God ever gave
should gladly be given up, if it be to His glory. This is the harvest of the
corn, and of all kinds of ripe fruits, on which we shall live eternally, and
which make us rich in God. Thus the virtues are made perfect, and sorrow is
turned to eternal wine. By such men, and by their lives and their patience,
all those who know them and all their neighbours are taught and changed for
the better: and so the corn of their virtues is sown and multiplied for the
benefit of all good men.
This is the fourth way in which a man by inward working is adorned and
perfected in the bodily powers and the lower part of himself: and in no
other way can he continually grow and become more perfect. But as such men
have been harshly afflicted, and have been tried, and tempted, and
combatted, by God, by their own selves, and by all creatures, in them the
virtue of resignation reaches a singular perfection. Nevertheless,
resignation, or the renunciation of self-will for the will of God, is before
all things needful for all men who wish to be saved.
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CHAPTER XXX
A PARABLE: HOW ONE MAY BE HINDERED IN THIS FOURTH DEGREE
At this season of the year, so soon as the equinox is come, the sun begins
to descend and the weather becomes cooler. And then some imprudent men
become full of noxious humours, which enter into the stomach, and spoil the
health and bring many diseases: and these destroy the appetite and the taste
of good food, and bring many to death. And some men are corrupted by these
noxious humours, so that they get dropsy, and have therefrom long torments
and sometimes die. And from the super-abundance of these humours come
sickness and fever from which many men suffer, and of which some die. And so
likewise it is, when men of good-will, who once tasted God, have swerved
from Him and from truth, and have gone astray; these either sicken in the
way of perfection, or wither away as regards virtue, or fall into eternal
death, through one of these maladies, and some through all three. Especially
when he is forsaken a man has need of much strength, and must exercise
himself in the way I have just taught you: thus he shall not be deceived.
But the unwise man, who rules himself ill, falls easily into these maladies;
for in him the weather has grown cooler. For this reason his nature becomes
slow in virtue and in good works, and craves for comfort and softness of the
body; often without discretion and more than is needful. And other men would
like well to receive solace from God, if they might partake of Him without
pains and labour. And some seek for solace in creatures, wherefrom great
harm often ensues. And some think themselves sick and feeble and that their
powers are exhausted, and believe that they have need of all that they can
get, and that they must cherish their bodies in comfort and repose. When a
man yields himself in such a way, and seeks without discretion after bodily
things and comforts; then all such things are noxious humours which fulfil
the stomach, that is to say, the man’s heart, and take from him the taste
and the enjoyment of good food, that is to say, of all the virtues.
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CHAPTER XXXI
OF ANOTHER HINDRANCE
If a man thus falls into sickness and cold, he is sometimes caught by
dropsy, that is to say, he has an inclination towards the outward possession
of earthly things. The more such men acquire, the more they desire; for they
straightway become dropsical. The belly, that is, the appetites or lusts,
swells terribly, and the thirst will not be quenched. But the face of
conscience and discretion becomes small and thin, for these men put
hindrances against the inflow of the grace of God. If they thus accumulate
the waters of earthly possessions about the heart, that is, if they cling to
them with desire, they cannot progress in works of charity; for they are
sick, they lack the inward spirit of life and breath, that is to say, they
lack the grace of God and inward charity. And therefore they cannot rid
themselves of the waters of earthly riches: the heart is submerged in them,
and they are often choked therein and die an eternal death. But those who
keep the waters of earthly riches far below the heart, so that they are
master of their possessions and can renounce them whenever it is needful:
these, though they may suffer long from inordinate inclinations, may yet be
cured.
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CHAPTER XXXII
OF FOUR KINDS OF FEVER WHEREWITH A MAN MAY BE TORMENTED
Those men who are full of noxious humours, that is to say, full of
inordinate inclination towards bodily comfort and towards foreign and
creaturely consolations, can fall into four kinds of fever.
The first kind is called the quotidian fever. It is a multiplicity of the
heart; for these men wish to know all things, and to speak of all things,
and to criticise and to judge all things, and meanwhile they often fail to
observe themselves. They are weighed down by many strange cares; they must
often hear what they do not like; and the least thing troubles them. Their
thoughts are restless; first this, then that, first here, then there; they
are like to the winds. This is a daily fever; for they are troubled, and
busied, and in multiplicity, from morning until evening, and sometimes in
the night also, whether they sleep or wake. Though this may exist in a state
of grace and without mortal sin, yet it hinders inwardness and inward
practices and takes away the taste of God and of all virtues. And this is an
eternal loss.
The second kind of fever comes on alternate days. It is called fickleness.
If it lasts long it is often dangerous. This fever is of two kinds:
sometimes it comes from intemperate heat, and sometimes from cold. The one
which comes from intemperate heat befalls certain good men; for when they
are, or have been, touched by God, and then are forsaken of Him, they
sometimes fall into fickleness. To-day they choose one way of life, and
to-morrow another; at one time they wish to be silent, and another time they
wish continually to speak. First they wish to enter into this order, then
into that. First they wish to give all their goods to God, then they wish to
keep them. At one time they wish to wander abroad, at another to be enclosed
in a cell. At one time they long to go often to the Sacrament, and shortly
afterwards they value this but little. At one time they wish to pray much in
a loud voice, and another time but shortly after, they would keep silence.
And this is both a vain curiosity and a fickleness, which hinder and impede
a man from comprehending inward truth, and destroy in him both the source
and the practice of all inwardness. Now mark whence this unstable condition
comes in some good men. When a man sets his thoughts and his inward active
endeavour on the virtues and on outward behaviour more than on God and on
union with God: though he remains in the grace of God (for in the virtues he
aims at God), yet none the less his life is unstable, for he does not feel
himself to rest in God above all virtues. And therefore he possesses
something that he does not know; for, Him Whom he seeks in the virtues and
in the multiplicity of acts, he possesses within himself, above intention,
above virtues, and above all ways and means. And therefore, if this man
would overcome his fickleness, he must learn to rest above all virtues in
God and in the most high Unity of God.
The other fever of fickleness, which comes from cold, all those men have who
love God indeed, but at the same time seek and inordinately love some other
thing. This fever comes from cold, for the heat of charity is poor indeed
where not God alone, but foreign things besides and with God, urge and
excite us towards the works of virtue. Such men are fickle of heart; for in
all the things which they do, nature is secretly seeking its own, often
without their knowledge, for they know not themselves. Such men choose and
abandon, first one way of life, then another. To-day they choose one priest,
to whom they would go for confession and for counsel their whole life long;
and to-morrow they will choose another. On all things they will ask advice,
but hardly ever do they act upon it. All things for which they are blamed
and rebuked they like to excuse and to justify. Of fine words they have
plenty, but little is in them. They like well to have a reputation for
virtue, but without great effort. They wish their virtues to be known, and
these are therefore empty, and have no savour either of God nor of
themselves. Others they teach, but will themselves hardly be taught or
reproved. A natural self-love and a hidden pride make them thus fickle. Such
people walk on the verge of hell: one false step, and into it they fall.
In some men this fever of fickleness may produce the quartan fever; that is,
an estrangement from God and from themselves and from truth and from all
virtues. And then they fall into such confusion that they are at their
wit’s end and know not what to do. This illness is more dangerous than
either of the others.
Through this estrangement a man sometimes falls into a fever which is called
the double quartan, which means indifference. Then the fourth day is
doubled, and he can hardly recover, for he becomes indifferent and heedless
of all that is needful to eternal life. So he may fall into sin, like one
who never knew anything of God. If this may befall those men who govern
themselves ill in this state of abandonment, then it behoves those to beware
who never knew ought of God, nor of the inward life, nor of that sweet
savour which good men find in their exercises.
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CHAPTER XXXIII
SHOWING HOW THESE FOUR DEGREES IN THEIR PERFECTION ARE FOUND IN CHRIST
If we wish to progress rightly in the four aforesaid degrees of the inward
exercise which adorn a man’s bodily powers and the lower part of his nature,
we should mark Christ, Who taught us these four ways and has gone before us
therein. Christ, the bright Sun, rose in the heavens of the most high
Trinity, and in the dawn of His glorious mother, the Virgin Mary; who was,
and is, the dawn and daybreak of all those graces in which we shall rejoice
eternally.
Now mark this: Christ had, and still has, the first degree; for he was one
and in oneness. In Him were, and are, gathered and united all the virtues
that ever were, and ever shall be, practised; moreover all the creatures who
ever practised, and ever shall practise, these virtues. Thus He was the
Father’s Only Begotten Son, and was united with human nature. And He was
inward; for He brought to earth the fire that inflamed all the saints and
all good men. And He yielded a sensible love and loyalty to His Father, and
to all those who shall enjoy Him in eternity. And His devotion and His
loving and aspiring heart burned and groaned before His Father because of
the miseries of all men. His whole life, and all His works, from without and
from within, and all His words, were thanksgiving and praise, and glorifying
of His Father. This is the first degree.
Christ, the Sun of Love, sparkled and shone brighter still, and more
ardently; for in Him was, and is, the fulness of all graces and gifts. And
for this reason the heart of Christ and His way of life, and His conduct,
and His service, over-flowed in mercy, in gentleness, in humility, and in
generosity; and He was so gracious and so lovable that His ways and His
person drew all men of goodwill. He was the unspotted lily amidst the
flowers of the field, wherefrom all the just may suck the honey of eternal
sweetness and eternal consolation. For all the gifts which were ever
bestowed upon the manhood of Christ, Christ thanked and praised, according
to His manhood, His Eternal Father, Who is the Father of all gifts; and He
rested, as regards the highest powers of His soul, above all gifts, in the
most high Unity of God, from which all gifts flow forth. Thus He possessed
the second degree.
Christ the glorious Sun sparkled and shone higher still, and brighter, and
more ardently; for all the days of His life long His bodily powers and His
senses, His heart and His mind, were called and destined of His Father to
that most high glory and beatitude which He now enjoys, according to His
senses and His bodily powers. And He Himself was both naturally and
supernaturally inclined thereto, according to His affections; nevertheless
He was willing to abide in this exile until the time that His Father had
foreseen and ordained from eternity. Thus He possessed the third degree.
When the due time had come wherein Christ should reap, and carry into the
Eternal Kingdom, the fruits of all those virtues which ever had ripened, or
ever should ripen, then the Eternal Sun began to descend; for then Christ
humbled Himself, and delivered His bodily life into the hands of His
enemies. And in this distress He was denied and forsaken of His friends, and
from His human nature there was withdrawn all inward and outward
consolation; and there was laid on it misery and sorrow, buffettings,
blasphemies, and heavy burdens, and it paid the price of all our sins
according to justice. And He bore these things in humble patience, and,
whilst He was thus forsaken, He wrought the greatest work of love. And,
thereby He has bought back and redeemed our eternal heritage. Thus is He
adorned in the lower part of His noble manhood; for in it He suffered these
pains for our sins. And this is why He is called the Saviour of the world,
and why He is glorified, honoured, and exalted, and set on the right hand of
His Father, where He reigns in mightiness; and all creatures, in heaven, and
on earth, and in hell, bow the knee eternally before His most high Name.
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CHAPTER XXXIV
SHOWING HOW A MAN SHOULD LIVE IF HE WOULD BE ENLIGHTENED
The man who lives in true obedience and in the moral virtues, according to
the commandments of God, and besides this practices the inward virtues
according to the teaching and stirring of the Holy Ghost, who is just in
deed and in word, who seeks not his own, neither in time nor in eternity,
who can bear with equanimity and with true patience, darkness and heaviness,
and all kinds of miseries, and thanks God for everything, and offers himself
up with humble resignation: he has received the first coming of Christ
according to the way of inward exercise. And he has gone out from himself in
the inward life, and has adorned with rich virtues and gifts his quickened
heart and the unity of his body and senses. When such a man has been
altogether purified and set at rest, and is gathered together into unity as
regards his lower powers, he can be inwardly enlightened, if God deems that
the time is fit and he craves it. It may also come to pass, that a man may
be enlightened at the beginning of his conversion, if he yield himself
wholly to the will of God and renounce all selfhood; all lies in this. Such
a man, however, must afterwards pass through those degrees and ways of the
outward and the inward life which have been shown heretofore; but this would
be easier to him than to another, who mounts from below upwards, for he has
more light than the other man.
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CHAPTER XXXV
OF THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, OR, THE FOUNTAIN WITH THREE RILLS
Now we will speak further of the second manner of the coming of Christ, in
those inward exercises by which a man is adorned, enlightened, and enriched
in the three highest powers of the soul. This coming we will liken to a
living fountain with three rills. [49]
The fountain-head, from which the rills flow forth, is the fulness of Divine
grace within the unity of our spirit. There grace dwells essentially;
abiding as a brimming fountain, and actively flowing forth in rills into all
the powers of the soul, each according to its need. These rills are special
inflowings or workings of God in the higher powers, wherein God works by
means of grace in many diverse ways.
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[49] Probably Ruysbroeck had here in mind such a “fountain” or lavabo as was
to be seen in almost any fourteenth century cloister: a cistern or basin fed
by a duct of running water, and pouring itself out in several streams into
the lower basin or trough which provided washing-places for the brethren.
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CHAPTER XXXVI
THE FIRST RILL ADORNS THE MEMORY [50]
The first rill of grace, which God causes to flow forth in this coming, is a
pure simplicity, shining in the spirit without differentiation. This rill
takes its rise from the fountain within the unity of the spirit; and it
flows straight downwards and pours through all the powers of the soul, the
lower and the higher; and raises them above all multiplicity and all
busyness and produces simplicity in a man; and shows and gives him the
inward bond of unity of spirit. Thus he is lifted up as regards his memory,
and is freed from distracting images and from fickleness.
Now in this light, Christ demands a going out in conformity with this light
and with this coming. So the man goes out, and knows and finds himself,
through this simple light which has been poured into him, to be united and
established and penetrated and confirmed, in the unity of his spirit or
mind. Thereby the man is raised up and set in a new state, and he turns
inwards, and fixes his memory upon the Nudity, above all the distractions of
sensible images, and above multiplicity. Here the man possesses the
essential and supernatural unity of his spirit, as his own dwelling-place
and as his own eternal, personal heritage. He ever has a natural and a
supernatural tendency towards this same unity; and this same unity through
the gifts of God and through simplicity of intention, shall have an eternal
loving tendency towards that most high Unity, where, in the bond of the Holy
Ghost, the Father and the Son are united with all saints. And thus the first
rill, which demands unity, is satisfied. [51]
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[50] It should be remembered that for the medieval psychologist the term
“memory” included all that we mean by “mind.”
[51] “The Godhead,” says Dionysius, “is celebrated by religion as One and as
Unity, because of the simplicity and oneness of its supernatural
indivisibility. Thereby, as by a unifying power, we are unified; and, when
our various diversities have been gathered together in a supernatural way,
we are collected into a divine onefoldness and union wherein we are like
unto God.” (Divine Names, cap. 1.)
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CHAPTER XXXVII
THE SECOND RILL ENLIGHTENS THE UNDERSTANDING
Through inward charity and loving inclination and the faithfulness of God,
there arises the second rill from the fulness of grace within the unity of
the spirit; and it is a ghostly light which flows forth and shines into the
understanding, discerning diverse things. For this light shows and proves in
truth the distinctions between all the virtues; but this does not lie wholly
in our power. For, even if we always had this light within our souls, it is
God Who makes it to be silent and to speak, and He may show it and hide it,
give it and take it away, in any time and place; for this light is His. And
He therefore works in this light when He wills, and where He wills, and for
whom He wills, and what He wills. These men have no need of revelations,
neither of being caught up above the senses; for their life, and
dwelling-place, their way, and their being, are in the spirit, above the
senses and above sensibility. And there God shows to such men what is His
good pleasure, and what is needful for them or for other men. Nevertheless
God could, were such His will, deprive such men of their outward senses, and
show them from within unknown similitudes and future things in many ways.
Now Christ wills that this man go out and walk in this light, in the way of
this light. Therefore this enlightened man shall go out and shall mark his
state and his life from within and from without, and see whether he is
perfectly like unto Christ, according to His manhood and according to His
Godhead. For we have been created in the image and after the likeness of
God. And he shall raise his enlightened eyes, by means of the illuminated
reason, to the intelligible Truth, and mark and behold in a creaturely way
the most high Nature of God and the fathomless attributes which are in God:
for to a fathomless Nature belong fathomless virtues and activities.
The most high Nature of the Godhead may thus be perceived and beheld: how it
is Simplicity and Onefoldness, inaccessible Height and bottomless Depth,
incomprehensible Breadth and eternal Length, a dark Silence, a wild Desert,
the Rest of all saints in the Unity, and a common Fruition of Himself and of
all saints in Eternity. And many other marvels may be seen in the abysmal
Sea of the Godhead; and though, because of the grossness of the senses to
which they must be shown from without, we must use sensible images, yet, in
truth, these things are perceived and beheld from within, as an abysmal and
unconditioned Good. But if they must be shown from without, it must be done
by means of diverse similitudes and images, according to the enlightenment
of the reason of him who shapes and shows them.
The enlightened man shall also mark and behold the attributes of the Father
in the Godhead: how He is omnipotent Power and Might, Creator, Mover,
Preserver, Beginning and End, the Origin and Being of all creatures. This
the rill of grace shows to the enlightened reason in its radiance. It also
shows the attributes of the Eternal Word: abysmal Wisdom and Truth, Pattern
of all creatures and all life, Eternal and unchanging Rule, Seeing all
things and Seeing Through all things, none of which is hidden from Him;
Transillumination and Enlightenment of all saints in heaven and on earth,
according to the merits of each. And even as this rill of radiance shows the
distinctions between many things, so it also shows to the enlightened reason
the attributes of the Holy Ghost: incomprehensible Love and Generosity,
Compassion and Mercy, infinite Faithfulness and Benevolence, inconceivable
Greatness, outpouring Richness, a limitless Goodness drenching through all
heavenly spirits with delight, a Flame of Fire which burns all things
together in the Unity, a flowing Fountain, rich in all savours, according to
the desire of each; the Preparation of all saints for their eternal bliss
and their entrance therein, an Embrace and Penetration of the Father, the
Son, and all saints in fruitive Unity. All this is observed and beheld
without differentiation or division in the simple Nature of the Godhead. And
according to our perception these attributes abide as Persons do, in
manifold distinctions. For between might and goodness, between generosity
and truth, there are, according to our perception great differences.
Nevertheless all these are found in oneness and undifferentiation in the
most high Nature of the Godhead. But the relations which make the personal
attributes remain in eternal distinction. For the Father begets distinction.
For the Father incessantly begets his Son, and Himself is unbegotten; and
the Son is begotten, and cannot beget; and thus throughout eternity the
Father has a Son, and the Son a Father. And these are the relations of the
Father to the Son, and of the Son to the Father. And the Father and the Son
breathe forth one Spirit, Who is Their common Will or Love. And this Spirit
begets not, nor is He begotten; but must eternally pour forth, being
breathed forth from both the Father and the Son. And these three Persons are
one God and one Spirit. And all the attributes with the works which flow
forth from them are common to all the Persons, for They work by virtue of
Their Onefold Nature. [52]
The incomprehensible richness and loftiness of the Divine Nature, its
outpouring generosity toward all in common, fills a man with wonder. And,
above all, he wonders at the universality of God and His outpouring upon all
things. For he beholds the incomprehensible Essence as a common fruition of
God and all saints. And he sees the Divine Persons as a common outpouring
and a common activity in grace and in glory, in nature and above nature, in
all places and at all times, in saints and in men, in heaven and on earth,
in all creatures, rational, irrational, and material, according to the
merits, the need, and the receptivity of each. And he beholds heaven and
earth, sun and moon, the four elements, together with all creatures, and the
course of the heavens, created for all in common. God, with all His gifts,
is common to all: the angels are common: the soul is common to all its
powers, to the whole body, to all its members, yet in each member is entire;
for the soul cannot be divided, save by the reason. For though, according to
the reason, the highest powers and the lowest, the spirit and the soul, are
certainly divided; yet, in nature, they are one. So too God is whole and
special to each, and yet common to all creation; for by Him all things are;
within Him and upon Him, heaven and earth and all nature depend. When a man
thus considers the wonderful wealth and loftiness of the Divine Nature, and
all the multiplicity of gifts which He gives and offers to His creatures,
then there grows up within him a wonder at such manifold richness, at such
loftiness, and at the immeasurable faithfulness of God to His creatures. And
thence springs a particular inward gladness of the spirit, and a high trust
in God, and this inward gladness envelops and drenches all the powers of the
soul and the most inward part of the spirit.
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[52] This wonderful description of the attributes of God contains many
reminiscences of mystical writers, from St Paul onwards: especially St
Augustine, Dionysius, St Bernard, and Meister Eckhart. Cf. St Augustine,
Confessions, bk. 1. caps. 3 and 4, Dionysius the Areopagite, Divine Names,
caps. 1 and 7, and Celestial Hierarchy, cap. 7, St. Bernard, de
consideratione, bk. v. cap. 8, Meister Eckhart, Predichten. There are
striking parallels to this and other similar passages in Ruysbroeck in the
Book of Truth of his contemporary Suso.
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CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE THIRD RILL ESTABLISHES THE WILL TO EVERY PERFECTION
From this gladness and the fulness of grace and the faithfulness of God,
there is born and flows forth the third rill in this same unity of the
spirit. This rill, like a fire, enkindles the will, and swallows up and
consumes everything into unity. And it fills to the brim and flows through
all the powers of the soul, with rich gifts and with a singular nobility:
and it calls forth in the will a tender spiritual love without effort.
Now Christ says inwardly within the spirit by means of this burning brook:
Go ye out by practices in conformity with these gifts and with this coming.
By the first rill, which is a simple light, the memory has been lifted above
sensible images, and has been grounded and established in the unity of the
spirit. By the second rill, which is an inflowing light, understanding and
reason have been enlightened, to know the diverse ways of virtue and of
practice, and discern the mysteries of the Scriptures. By the third rill,
which is an inpouring heat, the supreme will has been enkindled in tranquil
love, and has been endowed with great riches. Thus has this man become
spiritually enlightened; for the grace of God dwells like a fountainhead in
the unity of his spirit; and its rills cause in the powers an outflowing
with all the virtues. And the fountainhead of grace ever demands a
flowing-back into the same source from whence the flood proceeds.
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CHAPTER XXXIX
SHOWING HOW THE ESTABLISHED MAN SHALL GO OUT IN FOUR WAYS
Now the man who is established in the bonds of love shall dwell in the unity
of the spirit; and he shall go out with enlightened reason and with
overflowing love in heaven and on earth; and he shall mark all things with
clear discernment; and he shall dispense and distribute all things, out of
true generosity, and because of his richness in God.
In four ways this enlightened man is invited and urged to go out. The first
going out shall be towards God and towards all saints; the second going out
shall be towards sinners and towards all perverted men; the third going out
shall be towards purgatory; and the fourth, towards himself and towards all
good men.
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CHAPTER XL
HE SHALL GO OUT TOWARDS GOD AND TOWARDS ALL SAINTS
Now understand this: this man shall go out and observe God in His glory with
all saints. And he shall behold the rich and generous outflowing of God,
with glory, and with Himself, and with inconceivable delights towards all
the saints, according to the longing of all spirits; and how these flow
back, with themselves, and with all that they have received and can achieve,
towards that same rich Oneness from which all bliss comes forth.
This flowing forth of God always demands a flowing back; for God is a Sea
that ebbs and flows, pouring without ceasing into all His beloved according
to the need and the merits of each, and ebbing back again with all those who
have been thus endowed both in heaven and on earth, with all that they have
and all that they can. And of some He demands more than they are able to
bring, for He shows Himself so rich and so generous and so boundlessly good:
and in showing Himself thus He demands love and adoration according to His
worth. For God wishes to be loved by us according to the measure of His
nobility, and in this all spirits fail; and therefore their love becomes
wayless and without manner, for they know not how they may fulfil it, nor
how they may come to it. For the love of all spirits is measured: and for
this reason their love perpetually begins anew, so that God may be loved
according to His demand and to the spirit’s own desires. And this is why all
blessed spirits perpetually gather themselves together and form a burning
flame of love, that they may fulfil this work, and that God may be loved
according to His nobility. Reason shows clearly that to creatures this is
impossible; but love always wills the fulfilment of love, or else will be
consumed, burned up, annihilated in its own failure. Yet God is never loved
according to His worth by any creatures. And to the enlightened reason this
is a great delight and satisfaction: that its God and its Beloved is so high
and so rich that He transcends all created powers, and can be loved
according to His merits by none save Himself.
This rich and enlightened man shall distribute gifts to all the angelic
choirs, and all spirits, each in particular according to its merits, out of
the richness of his God and out of the generosity of his own ground; which
is illuminated and overflowing with great and wonderful gifts. He passes
through all choirs, through all hierarchies and orders, and beholds how God
dwells in all according to the merit of each. This enlightened man goes
swiftly and in ghostly wise round and through all the heavenly hosts, rich
and overflowing with charity, and enriching and inundating the whole
celestial company with fresh glory out of the Richness and Abundance of the
Trinity and Unity of the Divine Nature.
This is the first going out, towards God and towards all saints.
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CHAPTER XLI
HE SHALL GO OUT TOWARDS ALL SINNERS
At times this same man shall descend towards sinners, with great compassion,
and with generous mercy, and shall bring them before God with fervent
devotion and with much prayer; bringing to God’s remembrance all the good
which He is, and all His power, and all that He has done for us, and has
promised us, right as though He had forgotten all this: for God wills that
we beseech Him. And charity shall obtain all that it desires; nevertheless
it must not be stubborn and self-willed, but must leave all to the rich
goodness and to the generosity of God: for God loves without measure, and
herein the lover best finds his peace. Now, since this man bears a common
love to all, he prays and beseeches God that His love and His mercy may flow
forth towards Pagans and towards Jews and towards all unbelievers, that He
may be loved and known and praised in heaven, and that our glory, our joy
and our peace may spread to all the ends of the earth.
This is the second going out, towards sinners.
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CHAPTER XLII
HE SHALL GO OUT TOWARDS HIS FRIENDS IN PURGATORY
At times the man shall behold his friends in purgatory, and shall consider
their misery and their yearnings and their heavy pains. Then shall he pray
and beseech the pity, the mercy, and the generosity of God; and shall plead
their good-will, and their great misery, and their yearning after the rich
goodness of God, and he shall bring to God’s remembrance that they died in
love, and that their only refuge is in His passion and mercy.
Now understand this: it may sometimes happen that this enlightened man is
specially urged of the Spirit of God to pray for a certain thing, for some
sinner, or for some soul, or for some ghostly benefit, in such a way that he
feels and understands it to be the work of the Holy Ghost, and not of his
own choice, or self-will, or nature. Then the man sometimes becomes so
intense and so ardent in his prayer that he receives in ghostly wise the
answer that his prayer has been heard. And with the coming of this sign the
thrust of the Spirit and the prayer abate.
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CHAPTER XLIII
HE SHALL GO OUT TOWARDS HIMSELF AND TOWARDS ALL GOOD MEN
Now the man shall go out towards himself and towards all men of good-will,
and shall taste and behold how that they are tied and bound together in
love; and he shall beseech and pray God that He may let His customary gifts
flow forth, that thereby all may be confirmed in His love and His eternal
worship. This enlightened man shall faithfully and discreetly teach and
instruct, reprove and serve, all men; for he bears in him a love towards
all. And thereby is he a mediator between God and all men. And then he shall
turn wholly inwards upon himself with all the saints and with all the just,
and possess in peace the unity of his spirit, and therewith the most high
Unity of God, wherein all spirits rest. This is a true ghostly life; for all
the degrees and all the virtues, inward as well as outward, and the highest
powers of the soul, are supernaturally adorned by it in a right and
profitable way.
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CHAPTER XLIV
SHOWING HOW WE MAY RECOGNISE THOSE MEN WHO FAIL IN CHARITY TO ALL
There are some men who are very subtle in words, and skilful in showing
forth high things, and yet do not enjoy this enlightened condition, neither
this common and generous charity. In order that these men may learn to know
themselves, and also may be known of others, I will distinguish them by
three signs. By the first sign they may be known of themselves, and by the
two others they may be recognised of all men of understanding.
The first sign: Whereas the enlightened man, by virtue of the Divine light,
is simple and stable and free from curious considerations, these others are
manifold and restless and full of subtle reasonings and reflections, and
they do not taste inward unity, nor the satisfaction which is without
images. And by this they may know themselves.
The second sign: Whereas the enlightened man possesses a wisdom inpoured by
God, wherein he knows and distinguishes the truth without effort, these men
have shrewd and sudden notions, with which they work in their imagination,
and which they display and develop with much cunning. But their ground is
barren and they cannot bring forth fruitful doctrine. Their doctrines are
manifold, they are concerned with outward things and addressed to the
understanding. And thereby inward men are troubled, hindered, and led
astray. They neither lead nor point to unity; but they teach subtle
observations in multiplicity. Such people hold obstinately to their own
doctrine and opinion, even though another opinion be as good as their own.
And they are idle and careless as regards all virtues. Spiritual pride is in
all their being. This is the second sign.
The third sign: Whereas the enlightened and loving man flows forth in love
towards all in heaven and on earth, as you have heard, this other man sets
himself apart in all things. He thinks himself to be the wisest and the best
of all; and desires that others should think highly of him and his teaching.
All those whom he does not teach and advise, all those who do not follow his
way of life and do not cling to him as their master, these seem to him to be
sunk in error. He is large and spacious in satisfying his bodily needs, and
little faults do not count heavily with him. This man is neither just, nor
humble, nor generous, nor a servant of the poor, nor inward, nor fervent,
nor does he feel the love of God. He knows neither God, nor his own being,
in the way of true virtue. This is the third sign.
Mark these, and study them, and cast them out of yourselves, and out of all
men in whom you remark them; but condemn no one for such things unless it be
that they have proved it by their deeds, for this would soil your heart and
would hinder it in the knowledge of Divine truth.
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CHAPTER XLV
HOW CHRIST WAS, IS, AND EVER WILL BE THE LOVER OF ALL
In order that we shall possess and desire this state of being common to all
above the other conditions of which we have spoken (because this state is
the highest of all) we shall take as a model Christ, Who was, and is, and
eternally shall remain common to all; for He was sent down to earth for the
common benefit of all men who would turn to Him.
Yet He Himself says that He is not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house
of Israel. These, however, are not only the Jews, but all those who shall
see God in eternity. These belong to the house of Israel, and no one else;
for the Jews despised the Gospel, and the Heathen entered and received it.
And so all Israel, that is to say, all the eternally chosen, shall be saved.
Now mark how Christ gave Himself to all in perfect loyalty. His inward and
sublime prayer flowed forth towards His Father, and it was a prayer for all
in common who desired to be saved. Christ was common to all in love, in
teaching, in tender consolation, in generous gifts, in merciful forgiveness.
His soul and His body, His life and His death and His ministry were, and
are, common to all. His sacraments and His gifts are common to all. Christ
never took any food or drink, nor anything that His body needed, without
intending by it the common good of all those who shall be saved, even unto
the last day. Christ had nothing particular and of his own, but everything
in common, body and soul, mother and disciples, cloak and tunic. He ate and
He drank for our sake; He lived and He died for our sake. His pains and His
sorrows and His miseries were of His own and for Him only; but the fruits
and the profit which came forth from them are common to all. And the glory
of His merits shall be common to all in eternity.
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CHAPTER XLVI
REPROVING ALL THOSE WHO LIVE ON SPIRITUAL GOODS IN AN INORDINATE MANNER
Now Christ left His treasure and His revenue here on earth. These are the
seven sacraments and the outward goods of Holy Church, which He has gotten
through His death, and which, therefore, should be in common. And His
servants, who live thereon, should therefore be in common. All those who
live on alms and are in the ecclesiastical state, should be in common at
least in their prayers: and especially all religious who live in cloisters
and in cells. In the beginning of Holy Church and of our Faith, popes,
bishops, and priests, were all in common; for they went out and converted
the folk, and established Holy Church and our Faith, and sealed them with
their blood and with their death. These men were simple and onefold, and
they had steadfast peace in the unity of the spirit. And they were
enlightened with godly wisdom, rich and overflowing with faith and with love
towards God and towards all men. But now, notwithstanding it is become
wholly otherwise; for those who to-day possess the heritage and the revenue
which were given to those others out of love and because of their holiness,
are unstable of soul, and restless, and in multiplicity; for they have
altogether turned towards the world, and do not thoroughly apprehend in
their ground those things and that business which they have in hand. That is
why they pray with their lips, but their heart does not savour the meaning,
that is to say, it does not feel the secret wonder which is hidden in
Scripture, and in the sacraments, and in their office. And therefore they
are coarse and dull, and are not enlightened by the Divine truth, and they
often seek food and drink and ease of body without moderation: would to God
they were at least clean of fleshly sins! As long as they live thus, they
shall never be enlightened; and whereas those others were generous, and
overflowing with charity, and kept nothing for themselves, these are now
greedy and avaricious, and deny themselves nothing. All this is contrary and
unlike to the saints, and to that common way of which we have spoken. I
speak of the general state of things: let each prove himself, and teach and
reprove himself, if needs be; and, if not, let him rejoice and rest in peace
in his clean conscience, and serve and praise God, for the good of himself
and of all men, and for the glory of God.
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CHAPTER XLVII
SHOWING HOW CHRIST HAS GIVEN HIMSELF TO ALL IN COMMON IN THE SACRAMENT OF THE
ALTAR
As I will specially praise and glorify this state of being in common, so I
find another special treasure which Christ has left in Holy Church to all
good men; in His supper upon the high feast of the Passover when Christ knew
that He would pass from this exile to His father, after He had eaten of the
Paschal Lamb with His disciples, and the ancient law had been fulfilled. At
the end of the meal and of the feast, He desired to give to them a dish of
singular excellence which He had long wished to do. And herewith He willed
to make an end of the ancient law and begin the new. And He took bread in
His holy and venerable hands, and consecrated His sacred Body, and after
that His sacred Blood; and He gave them both to all His disciples, and left
them to all good men in common for their eternal profit. This gift and this
excellent dish rejoice and adorn all high festivals and all banquets, in
heaven and on earth. In this gift Christ gives Himself to us in three ways.
He gives us His Flesh and His Blood and His bodily life, glorified and full
of joy and sweetness; He gives us His spirit with its highest powers, full
of glory and gifts, truth and righteousness; and He gives us His personality
through that Divine Light which raises His spirit and all enlightened
spirits into the most high and fruitive unity.
Now Christ desires that we shall remember Him so often as we consecrate,
offer, and receive His Body. Consider now how we shall remember Him. We
shall mark and behold how Christ inclines Himself towards us with loving
affection, with great desire, and with yearning delight, and with a warm and
tender outpouring of Himself into our bodily nature. For He gives us that
which He has in common with our manhood, that is, His Flesh and His Blood,
and His bodily nature. We shall also mark and behold that precious body
martyred, pierced and wounded for our sake, because of His love and His
faithfulness towards us. Herewith we are adorned and nourished in the lower
part of our manhood. In this most high gift of the Sacrament He also gives
us His spirit, full of glory and rich gifts of virtue, and unspeakable
marvels of charity and nobleness. And herewith we are nourished and adorned
and enlightened in the unity of our spirit and in the higher powers, through
the indwelling of Christ with all His riches. Moreover He gives us in the
Sacrament of the Altar His most high personality in incomprehensible
splendour. And through this we are lifted up to and united with the Father,
and the Father receives His adopted sons together with His natural Son, and
thus we enter into our inheritance of the Godhead in eternal blessedness.
When a man has worthily recollected and considered these things, then he
shall go out to meet Christ in the same way in which Christ comes to him. He
shall lift himself up to receive Christ with his heart, with his desire,
with sensible love, with all his powers, and with a joyful craving. For even
thus does Christ receive Himself. And this craving cannot be too great; for
then our nature receives its own nature, that is, the glorified manhood of
Christ, full of joy and worth. Therefore I would that a man, in thus
receiving, should melt and flow forth in desire, in joy, and in delight: for
he embraces and is united with Him who is the fairest, the most gracious and
most lovable of all the children of men. In this yearning devotion, and in
these delights, many a great benefit has been bestowed upon men, and many a
secret and hidden wonder of the rich treasures of God has been revealed and
disclosed to them. When a man, in thus receiving, bethinks himself of the
martyrdom and the sufferings of this precious Body of Christ, which he
receives, then he may sometimes rise into such loving devotion and such
sensible compassion that he desires to be nailed with Christ to the cross,
and longs to shed his heart’s blood for the glory of Christ. And he presses
into the wounds and into the open heart of Christ, his Saviour. In this
exercise many a revelation and many a benefit have often been bestowed upon
men.
This sensible love and compassion, and the power of the imagination united
with the inward contemplation of the wounds of Christ, may be so great, that
the man thinks that he feels the wounds and the bruises of Christ in his own
heart and in all his limbs. And if any man could indeed in any way receive
the stigmata of our Lord, it would be such a man as this. And herewith we
satisfy Christ as regards the lower part of His manhood.
We shall also dwell in the unity of our spirit and should flow forth with an
ample love in heaven and on earth, with clear discernment. And by this we
bear some resemblance to Christ as regards the spirit, and give Him
satisfaction.
We shall also, through the personality of Christ, with simplicity of
intention and with fruitive love, transcend ourselves, and also the created
being of Christ, and rest in our inheritance, that is, in the Divine Being
in eternity. This Christ always desires to give us in ghostly wise, whenever
we so exercise ourselves and make ourselves in readiness for Him. And He
desires that we shall receive Him both in a sacramental and a spiritual way,
as is meet and right and as reason demands. Though a man may not always have
such feelings and such desires, if he intend the praise of God and His
glory, and the increase of his own being and blessedness, he may go freely
to the table of the Lord, if his conscience be clean from mortal sin.
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CHAPTER XLVIII
OF THE UNITY OF THE DIVINE NATURE IN THE TRINITY OF THE PERSONS
The most high and superessential Unity of the Divine Nature, where the
Father and the Son possess Their nature in the unity of the Holy Ghost—above
the comprehension and understanding of all our powers, in the naked being of
our spirit—is a supernal stillness, wherein God broods above all creatures
in the created light. This most high Unity of the Divine Nature is living
and fruitful; for, out of this same Unity, the Eternal Word is incessantly
born of the Father. And, through this birth, the Father knows the Son; and,
in the Son, all things. And the Son knows the Father; and all things in the
Father. For they are one Simple Nature. From this mutual contemplation of
the Father and the Son, in the eternal radiance, there flow forth an eternal
content [53] and a fathomless love, and that is the Holy Ghost. And through
the Holy Ghost, and through the Eternal Wisdom, God inclines Himself towards
each creature in particular, and lovingly endows and enkindles each one,
according to its worth and the state into which it has been put and to which
it has been destined by its virtues and by the Eternal Providence of God.
And thereby all good spirits, in heaven and on earth, are moved to virtue
and righteousness.
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[53] The Flemish “welbehagen” is perhaps more accurately translated
“well-being,” “comfort” or “good pleasure.” Cf. The Book of Truth, cap. 10.
The idea intended is the complete and blissful self-comprehension and
self-satisfaction of the Divine Essence; the “perfect round” which is
enringed in love. So Dante— “O luce eterna, che sola in te sidi, sola
t’intendi, e, da te intelletta ed intendente te, ami ed arridi!” (Par.
xxxiii. 124.)
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CHAPTER XLIX
SHOWING HOW GOD POSSESSES AND MOVES THE SOUL BOTH IN A NATURAL AND A
SUPERNATURAL WAY
Now mark well: I will show you an image of this. God has created the highest
heaven, a pure and simple Radiance, which enrings and encloses all the
heavens and all bodily and material things that God has ever created; for it
is an outward dwelling-place and a kingdom of God and His saints, full of
glory and eternal joy. Now since this heaven is an unmingled Radiance, there
is here neither time, nor space, nor movement, nor any change; for it is
immovable and unchangeable above all things. The sphere which is nearest to
this glowing heaven is called the First Movement. For here all movement
arises from the highest heaven, by the Power of God. From this movement the
firmament and all planets derive their courses. And, through it, all
creatures live and grow, each according to its kind [54] . Now understand
this well: so likewise the essence of the soul is a ghostly kingdom of God,
full of Divine radiance transcending all our powers, except they be in that
simplified state of which I will not speak now. Behold, in regard to the
essence of the soul, wherein God reigns, the unity of our spirit is like to
the First Movement; for, in this unity, the spirit is moved from above by
the power of God, both naturally and supernaturally. For we have nothing of
our own, neither in nature, nor above nature. And this stirring of God, when
it is supernatural, is the first and principle cause of all virtues. And
through this stirring of God, there are given to some men the seven gifts of
the Holy Ghost, like to the seven planets, which illuminate and make
fruitful the whole life of man. This is the way in which God possesses the
essential unity of our spirit as His kingdom; and in which He works and
flows forth with His gifts into our potential unity and into all our powers.
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[54] Here again Ruysbroeck and Dante, both depending upon scholastic
conceptions of the Universe, are in close agreement. Ruysbroeck’s “heaven of
unmingled radiance” is the Empyrean “ch’ é pura luce” (Par. xxx. 39): from
this the Primum Mobile, or first revolving heaven, takes and distributes the
power by which all creation is moved. “E questo cielo non ha altro dove che
la mente divina, in che s’accende l’amor che il volge e la virt ch’ ei
piove.” (Par. xxvii. 109.)
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CHAPTER L
SHOWING HOW A MAN SHOULD BE ADORNED IF HE IS TO RECEIVE THE MOST INWARD
EXERCISE
Now consider diligently how we can acquire and possess the most inward
exercise of our spirit in the created light. The man who is well adorned
with the moral virtues of the outward life, and has risen into nobility and
divine peace by inward practices; he possesses the unity of the spirit,
enlightened by supernatural wisdom, flowing forth in generous love toward
heaven and earth and lifting itself up by its reverence and its merits, and
flowing back into that very ground, the most high Unity of God, from which
all things proceed. For each creature, according to whether it has received
more or less from God, has more or less of ascending love and inward
tendency towards its origin; for God and all His gifts invite us into Him,
and through charity and the virtues and resemblance, we desire to enter into
Him.
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CHAPTER LI
OF THE THIRD COMING OF CHRIST
Through this loving inclination of God, and His inward working in the unity
of our spirit, and further through our glowing love and the pressing of all
our powers together into the very unity in which God dwells, there arises
the third coming of Christ in inward working. And this is an inward touch or
stirring of Christ in His Divine brightness, in the inmost part of our
spirit. The second coming, of which we have spoken, we have likened to a
fountain, pouring forth in three rills. But this coming we will liken to the
duct which feeds the fountain. For there is no rill without a fountain; and
no fountain without a living duct. So likewise the grace of God flows forth
like rills into the higher powers, and impels and enkindles a man in all
virtue. And this grace springs up within the unity of our spirit like a
fountain, and falls back again into that same unity whence it arises; even
as a living and gushing spring which comes forth from the living ground of
the Divine Richness, where neither faithfulness nor grace can ever fail. And
this is the touch which I mean. And the creature passively endures this
touch. For here there is a union of the higher powers within the unity of
the spirit, above the multiplicity of all the virtues, and here no one works
save God alone, in untrammelled goodness; which is the cause of all our
virtues and of all blessedness. In the unity of the spirit, into which this
duct gushes forth, one is above activity and above reason, though not
without reason. For the enlightened reason, and especially the power of
love, feels this touch; and reason cannot understand, nor can it comprehend,
the way or the means of this touch, how or what it is, for it is a working
of God, the upspringing and the inrushing of all graces and gifts, and the
last intermediary between God and the creature. And above this touch, in the
still being of the spirit, there broods an incomprehensible Brightness. And
that is the most high Trinity whence this touch proceeds. There God lives
and reigns in the spirit, and the spirit in God.
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CHAPTER LII
SHOWING HOW THE SPIRIT GOES OUT THROUGH THE DIVINE STIRRING
Now, through this touch, Christ says inwardly within the spirit: Go ye out
with practices in conformity with this touch. For this deep touch draws and
invites our spirit to the most inward practices which a creature is able to
fulfil in a creaturely way in the created light. Here the spirit raises
itself, through the power of love, above all works, into the unity where
this life-giving spring or touch gushes forth. And this touch invites the
understanding to know God in His brightness, and it draws and invites the
power of love to enjoy God without intermediary. And this the loving spirit
desires to do, both in a natural and a supernatural way, above all other
things. By means of the enlightened reason the spirit lifts itself up in
inward observation, and it beholds and observes the most inward part of
itself, where this touch lives. Here reason and every created light fail and
can go no further. For the Supernal Brightness brooding over all, which
gives rise to this touch, blinds in its coming every created sight; for it
is abysmal. And all understanding in the created light is here like the eyes
of a bat in the light of the sun. Yet the spirit is continually invited and
urged anew by God and by itself to sound and to know that which is stirring
these deeps, and what God is, and what this touch is. And the enlightened
reason ever asks anew, whence this comes, and ever seeks to explore further,
that it may follow back this stream of honey to its source. But in this it
is, on the first day, as wise as it shall ever be. And this is why reason
and all observation say: “I know not what it is,” for the Supernal
Brightness brooding over all, strikes back all understanding and blinds it
whenever they meet.
So God abides in His brightness above all spirits who are in heaven and on
earth. And those who have pierced through their ground by means of the
virtues and inward practices, to their source, that is, to the door of
eternal life, may feel this touch. There the Brightness of God shines so
mightily that reason and all understanding fail and can go no further, but
must be overcome and give way before the incomprehensible Brightness of God.
But when the spirit feels this in its ground, then, though its reason and
understanding fail before the Divine Brightness, and must remain outside the
door, the power of love desires to go forward; for it too, like the
understanding, has been invited and urged. And it is blind and desires
fruition; and fruition abides more in tasting and feeling than in
understanding. Therefore would love go forward, whilst understanding stays
outside.
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CHAPTER LIII
OF AN ETERNAL HUNGER FOR GOD
Here there begins an eternal hunger, which shall never more be satisfied; it
is an inward craving and hankering of the loving power and the created
spirit after an untreated Good. And since the spirit longs for fruition, and
is invited and urged thereto by God, it must always desire its fulfilment.
Behold, here there begins an eternal craving and continual yearning in
eternal insatiableness. All such are the poorest of all men living; for they
are avid and greedy, and their hunger is insatiable. Whatever they eat or
drink, they shall never be satisfied, for this hunger is eternal. For a
created vessel cannot contain an uncreated Good: and hence there is here an
eternal, hungry craving without satisfaction, and God poured forth above all
and yet staying it not. Here are great dishes of food and drink, of which no
one knows save he who tastes them: but full satisfaction in fruition is the
dish which is lacking there, and therefore this hunger is ever renewed. Yet,
in the touch, rivers of honey, full of all delights, flow forth; for the
spirit tastes these riches in all the ways which it can conceive and
apprehend; but all this is in a creaturely way and below God, and hence
there remains an eternal hunger and impatience. Though God gave to such a
man all the gifts which are possessed by all the saints, and everything that
He is able to give, but withheld Himself, the gaping desire of the spirit
would remain hungry and unsatisfied. The inward stirring and touching of God
makes us hungry and yearning; for the Spirit of God hunts our spirit: and
the more it touches it, the greater our hunger and our craving. And this is
the life of love in its highest working, above reason and above
understanding; for reason can here neither give nor take away from love, for
our love is touched by the Divine love. And as I understand it, here there
can never more be separation from God. God’s touch within us, forasmuch as
we feel it, and our own loving craving, these are both created and
creaturely; and therefore they may grow and increase as long as we live.
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CHAPTER LIV
OF A LOVING STRIFE BETWEEN THE SPIRIT OF GOD AND OUR SPIRIT
In this storm of love two spirits strive together: the spirit of God and our
own spirit. God, through the Holy Ghost, inclines Himself towards us; and,
thereby, we are touched in love. And our spirit, by God’s working and by the
power of love, presses and inclines itself into God: and, thereby, God is
touched. From these two contacts there arises the strife of love, at the
very deeps of this meeting; and in that most inward and ardent encounter,
each spirit is deeply wounded by love. These two spirits, that is our own
spirit and the Spirit of God, sparkle and shine one into the other, and each
shows to the other its face. This makes each of the spirits yearn for the
other in love. Each demands of the other all that it is; and each offers to
the other all that it is and invites it to all that it is. This makes the
lovers melt into each other. God’s touch and His gifts, our loving craving
and our giving back: these fulfil love. This flux and reflux causes the
fountain of love to brim over: and thus the touch of God and our loving
craving become one simple love. Here man is possessed by love, so that he
must forget himself and God, and knows and can do nothing but love. Thereby
the spirit is burned up in the fire of love, and enters so deeply into the
touch of God, that it is overcome in all its cravings, and turned to nought
in all its works, and empties itself; above all surrender becoming very
love. And it possesses, above all virtues, the inmost part of its created
being, where every creaturely work begins and ends. Such is love in itself,
foundation and origin of all virtues.
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CHAPTER LV
OF THE FRUITFUL WORKS OF THE SPIRIT, THE WHICH ARE ETERNAL
Now our spirit and this love are living and fruitful in virtues; and for
this reason the powers can no longer remain idle in the unity of the spirit.
For the incomprehensible brightness of God and His boundless love brood
above the spirit, and touch the loving power; and the spirit goes forth once
more into its works, but with a more sublime and inward striving than ever
before. And the more noble and inward it is, the more quickly it is spent
and brought to nought in love, and goes forth once more into fresh works.
And this is heavenly love. For ever does the craving spirit yearn to eat and
to swallow God; but itself is swallowed up in the touch of God, and fails in
all its works. For the highest powers are made one in the unity of the
spirit. Here are grace and love in their essence, above all works; for here
is the source of charity and every virtue. Here there is an eternal outflow
into charity and the virtues, and an eternal return with inward hunger for
the taste of God, and an eternal dwelling within in pure love. And all this
is in a creaturely way and below God; it is the most inward exercise which
one can perform in the created light, in heaven and on earth; and above it
there is nothing but the God-seeing life in the Divine light and in the
Godlike way. In this exercise one cannot go astray, nor can one be deceived;
and it begins in grace, and shall for ever last in glory.
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CHAPTER LVI
SHOWING THE WAY IN WHICH WE SHALL MEET GOD IN A GHOSTLY MANNER BOTH WITH AND
WITHOUT MEANS [55]
Now I have shown you how the free and uplifted man becomes, through the
grace of God, seeing in his inward practices. And we see that this is the
first point which Christ demands and desires of us where He says: Behold. As
to the second and third points, wherein He says: The Bridegroom cometh, and:
Go ye out, I have shown you the three ways of the inward coming of Christ;
and further that the first coming has four degrees, and how we are to go out
with practices answering to each way in which God inwardly enkindles,
teaches, and moves us. Now we must consider the fourth point, which is the
last. This is the meeting with Christ our Bridegroom. For all our inward and
ghostly vision, in grace or in glory, and all our going out in the virtues,
in whatsoever practices this be done, it is all for the sake of a meeting
and a union with Christ our Bridegroom: for He is our eternal rest and the
end and wage of all our labour.
You know that every meeting is a coming together of two persons, who come
from different places, which are separated from, and opposite to, each
other. Now Christ comes from above as a Lord and generous Giver, who can do
all things. And we come from below as the poor servants, who can do nothing
of ourselves, but have need of everything. The coming of Christ to us is
from within outwards, and we go towards Him from without inwards; and this
is why a ghostly meeting must here take place. And this coming and this
meeting of ourselves and Christ takes place in two ways, to wit, with means
and without means.
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[55] “Middel en sonder middel”: i.e. mediated, through gifts, forms, symbols
and conceptual images; and unmediated, being given as a direct intuitive
experience to the soul in the unity of the spirit.
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CHAPTER LVII
OF THE ESSENTIAL MEETING WITH GOD WITHOUT MEANS IN THE NAKEDNESS OF OUR
NATURE
Now understand and mark this well. The unity of our spirit has two
conditions: it is essential, and it is active. You must know that the
spirit, according to its essence, receives the coming of Christ in the
nakedness of its nature, without means and without interruption. For the
being and the life which we are in God, in our Eternal Image, and which we
have within ourselves according to our essence, this is without means and
indivisible. And this is why the spirit, in its inmost and highest part,
that is in its naked nature, receives without interruption the impress of
its Eternal Archetype, and the Divine Brightness; and is an eternal
dwelling-place of God in which God dwells as an eternal Presence, and which
He visits perpetually, with new comings and with new instreamings of the
ever-renewed brightness of His eternal birth. For where He comes, there He
is; and where He is, there He comes. And where He has never been, thereto He
shall never come; for neither chance nor change are in Him. And everything
in which He is, is in Him; for He never goes out of Himself. And this is why
the spirit in its essence possesses God in the nakedness of its nature, as
God does the spirit: for it lives in God and God in it. And it is able, in
its highest part, to receive, without intermediary, the Brightness of God,
and all that God can fulfil. And by means of the brightness of its Eternal
Archetype, which shines in it essentially and personally, the spirit plunges
itself and loses itself, as regards the highest part of its life, [56] in
the Divine Being, and there abidingly possesses its eternal blessedness; and
it flows forth again, through the eternal birth of the Son, together with
all the other creatures, and is set in its created being by the free will of
the Holy Trinity. And here it is like unto the image of the most high
Trinity in Unity, in which it has been made. And, in its created being, it
incessantly receives the impress of its Eternal Archetype, like a flawless
mirror, in which the image remains steadfast, and in which the reflection is
renewed without interruption by its ever-new reception in new light. This
essential union of our spirit with God does not exist in itself, but it
dwells in God, and it flows forth from God, and it depends upon God, and it
returns to God as to its Eternal Origin. [57] And in this wise it has never
been, nor ever shall be, separated from God; for this union is within us by
our naked nature, and, were this nature to be separated from God, it would
fall into pure nothingness. And this union is above time and space, and is
always and incessantly active according to the way of God. But our nature,
forasmuch as it is indeed like unto God but in itself is creature. receives
the impress of its Eternal Image passively. This is that nobleness which we
possess by nature in the essential unity of our spirit, where it is united
with God according to nature. This neither makes us holy nor blessed, for
all men, whether good or evil, possess it within themselves; but it is
certainly the first cause of all holiness and all blessedness. This is the
meeting and the union between God and our spirit in the nakedness of our
nature.
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[56] The word is “levendicheit,” really meaning the vital essence of the
soul: that “life-giving life” which Ruysbroeck, following St Bernard,
regards as the link between the soul’s essence and the Divine Essence, and
the vivid source of our life in time. Thus for him the spiritual man is a
“levende mensche”: more vividly alive than those in whom this germ of
Eternity has not been quickened.
[57] Thus Dionysius— “Every essence, power, energy, condition, perception,
reason, conception, contact, knowledge and union—in a word, all things
existing—are from the Beautiful and Good, and in the Beautiful and Good, and
return towards the Beautiful and Good.” (Divine Names, cap. 4.)
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CHAPTER LVIII
SHOWING HOW ONE IS LIKE UNTO GOD THROUGH GRACE AND UNLIKE UNTO GOD THROUGH
MORTAL SIN
Now consider this thought earnestly; for if you understand well that which I
will now tell you, and that which I have told you, you will have understood
all the Divine truth which any creature can teach you, and far more besides.
Otherwise does our spirit keep itself in that same unity when it is
conceived as acting or working: for then it exists in itself as in its
created and personal being. This is the source of the higher powers, and
here there are beginning and end of all the creaturely works which are
worked in a creaturely way, both in nature and above nature. Yet here the
unity does not work forasmuch as it is unity; but all the powers of the
soul, in what way soever they work, derive their strength and their power
from their proper source, that is, from the unity of the spirit, where it
dwells in its personal being.
In this unity, the spirit must always either be like unto God through grace
and virtue, or unlike unto God through mortal sin. For, that man has been
made after the likeness of God, means that he has been created in the grace
of God; the which grace is a God-formed light, which shines through us and
makes us like to God; and without this light, which makes us God-like, we
cannot be united with God supernaturally, even though we cannot lose the
image of God nor our natural unity with Him [58] . If we lose the likeness,
that is, the grace of God, we are damned. And therefore, whenever God finds
within us some capacity for the reception of His grace, it is His pleasure
and His free goodness to make us through His gifts, full of life, and like
unto Him. This always happens whenever we turn to Him with our whole will;
for at that very moment, Christ comes to us and in us, both with means and
without means, that is, with the virtues and above the virtues. And He
impresses His image and His likeness in us, namely Himself and His gifts:
and He redeems us from sin, and makes us free and like unto Himself. And in
that same working, through which God redeems us from sins, and makes us free
and like unto Him through charity, the spirit immerses itself in fruitive
love [59] . And here there take place a meeting and a union which are
without means and above nature, and wherein our highest blessedness
consists. Although all that He gives us from love and free goodness is
natural to God, for us, according to our condition, it is accidental and
supernatural. For before, we were strangers and unlike unto God; and
afterwards, becoming like Him, have received union with God.
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[58] This is the scholastic doctrine of the lumen gloriae. See Introduction,
p. xxv.
[59] “Onsinct die gheest hem selven in ghebrukeliker minnen”—the spirit, as
regards its separate consciousness, drowns and loses itself in the Eternal
Love of God. This immersion, self-mergence, or sinking of the spirit into
the One which is its home, is the “completing opposite” of that other action
of grace, which thrusts the self out with its powers as a free and energetic
instrument of the Divine Will: thus perfecting the soul’s dual likeness to
God, in work and in rest. Compare Ch. LXIII, “The Gift of Understanding.”
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CHAPTER LIX
SHOWING HOW ONE POSSESSES GOD IN UNION AND REST, ABOVE ALL LIKENESS THROUGH
GRACE
This meeting and this union, which the loving spirit achieves in God and
possesses without means, must take place in the essential intuition, deeply
hidden from our understanding; unless it be an effective understanding
according to the way of simplicity [60] . In the fruition of this unity we
shall rest evermore, above ourselves and above all things. From this unity,
all gifts, both natural and supernatural, flow forth, and yet the loving
spirit rests in this unity above all gifts; and here there is nothing but
God, and the spirit united with God without means. In this unity we are
taken possession of by the Holy Ghost, and we take possession of the Holy
Ghost and the Father and the Son, and the whole Divine Nature: for God
cannot be divided. And the fruitive tendency of the spirit [61] , which
seeks rest in God above all likeness, receives and possesses in a
supernatural way, in its essential being, all that the spirit ever received
in a natural way. All good men experience this; but how it is, this remains
hidden from them all their life long if they do not become inward and empty
of all creatures. In that very moment in which man turns away from sin, he
is received by God in the essential unity of his own being, at the summit of
his spirit, that he may rest in God, now and evermore. And he also receives
grace, and likeness unto God, in the proper source of his powers, that he
may evermore grow and increase in new virtues. And as long as this likeness
endures in charity and in virtues, so long also endures the union in rest.
And this cannot be lost save only by mortal sin.
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[60] By the “effective understanding” Ruysbroeck probably meant the faculty,
sometimes called the “higher reason” or “pure intellect” which the Victorine
mystics described as “beyond and beside reason,” and whereby the mind
contemplates intellectibilia: the “invisible things which may not be
comprehended by human reason.” Cf. Richard of St Victor, Benjamin Major, bk.
i. caps. 6 and 7.
[61] “Ghebrukelike gheneychtheit.” This, one of Ruysbroeck’s favourite
terms, is generally translated “inclination”; but really includes the
meaning—so characteristic of his doctrine—of a perceptual willed and active
tending or drawing-nigh of the spirit to the enjoyment and possession of
God: and instinctive effort of the soul to achieve its goal. It is the
tendency immortalised in St Augustine’s saying, “Thou hast made us for
Thyself, and our heart can find no rest except in Thee.” (Confessions, bk.
i. cap. 7.)
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CHAPTER LX
SHOWING HOW WE HAVE NEED OF THE GRACE OF GOD, WHICH MAKES US LIKE UNTO GOD
AND LEADS US TO GOD WITHOUT MEANS
Now all holiness and all blessedness lie in this: that the spirit is led
upwards, through likeness and by means of grace or glory, to rest in the
essential unity. For the grace of God is the way by which we must always go,
if we would enter into the naked essence in which God gives Himself with all
His riches without means. And this is why the sinners and the damned spirits
dwell in darkness; for they lack the grace of God, which should enlighten
them, and lead them, and show them the way to the fruitive unity. Yet the
essential being of the spirit is so noble, that even the damned cannot will
their own annihilation. But sin builds up a barrier, and gives rise to such
darkness and such unlikeness between the powers and the essence in which God
lives, that the spirit cannot be united with its proper essence; which would
be its own and its eternal rest, did sin not impede it. For whosoever lives
without sin, he lives in likeness unto God, and in grace, and God is his
own. And so we have need of grace, which casts out sin, and prepares the
way, and makes our whole life fruitful. And this is why Christ always comes
into us through means, that is, through grace and multifarious gifts; and we
too go out towards Him through means, that is, through virtues and diverse
practices. And the more inward gifts He gives and the more deeply He stirs
us, the more inward and delightful are the workings of our spirit, as you
have already heard in all the ways which have been shown forth before. And
here there is a perpetual renewal; for God ever gives new gifts, and our
spirit ever turns inward in such wise as it is invited and as is bestowed on
it by God, and in that meeting it always receives a higher renewal. And thus
one grows continually into a higher life. And this active meeting is
altogether through means; for the gifts of God and our virtues and the
activity of our spirit are the means. And these means are necessary for all
men and all spirits: for, without the mediation of God’s grace and a loving
turning to Him in freedom, no creature shall ever be saved.
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CHAPTER LXI
OF HOW GOD AND OUR SPIRIT VISIT EACH OTHER IN THE UNITY AND IN THE LIKENESS
Now God sees the dwelling and the resting-place which He has made within us
and through us; namely, the unity and the likeness. [62] And He wills to
visit this unity without interruption, with a new coming of His most high
birth and with a rich pouring forth of his fathomless love; for He wills to
dwell in bliss within the loving spirit. And He wills to visit the likeness
of our spirit with rich gifts, so that we become more like unto Him and more
enlightened in the virtues. Now it is Christ’s will that we should dwell and
abide within the essential unity of our spirit, rich with Him above all
creaturely works and above all virtues; and that we should dwell actively in
that same unity, rich and fulfilled with virtues and heavenly gifts. And He
wills that we shall visit that unity and that likeness without interruption,
by means of every work which we do: for in every new “Now,” God is born in
us, and from this most high birth the Holy Ghost flows forth with all His
gifts. Therefore we should go out to meet the gifts of God through the
likeness; and the most high birth, through the unity.
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[62] So Dionysius: “God-receptive minds, being the images of God, are the
Divine abodes wherein above all God rests.” (Celestial Hierarchy, cap. 7.)
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CHAPTER LXII
SHOWING HOW WE SHOULD GO OUT TO MEET GOD
Now mark how, in each of our works, we shall go out to meet God, and shall
increase our likeness unto Him, and shall more nobly possess the fruitive
unity. By every good work, how small soever it be, which is directed to God
with love and with an upright and single intention, we earn a greater
likeness, and eternal life in God. A single intention draws together the
scattered powers into the unity of the spirit, and joins the spirit to God.
A single intention is end, and beginning, and adornment, of all virtues. A
single intention offers to God praise and honour and all virtues: and it
pierces and passes through itself, and all the heavens, and all things, and
finds God within the simple ground of its own being. That intention is
single which aims only at God and in all things only at their connection
with God. The single intention casts out hypocrisy and duplicity, and a man
must possess it and practise it in all his works above all other things; for
it is this which keeps man in the presence of God, clear in understanding,
diligent in virtue, and free from outward fear, both now and in the Day of
Doom. Singleness of intention is the single eye of which Christ speaks,
giving light to the whole body—that is, to the man’s works and his whole
life—and cleansing it of sin. Singleness of intention is the inward,
enlightened, and loving tendency of the spirit; it is the foundation of all
ghostliness; it includes in itself faith, hope, and charity, for it trusts
in God and is faithful to Him. It casts nature underfoot, it establishes
peace, it drives out ghostly discontent, and preserves fulness of life in
all the virtues. And it gives peace and hope and boldness toward God, both
now and in the Day of Doom.
Thus we shall dwell in the unity of the spirit, in grace and in likeness;
and shall always go out to meet God by means of the virtues, and offer up to
Him with a simple intention our whole life and all our works; and thus in
every work, and ever more and more, we shall increase our likeness. And thus
we rise up out of the ground of our single intention, and pass through
ourselves and go out to meet God without means, and rest in Him in the abyss
of simplicity: there we possess that heritage which has been prepared for us
from all eternity. All ghostly life and all works of virtue consist in the
Divine likeness and in singleness of intention; and all their supreme rest
consists in simplicity above all likeness. Nevertheless, one spirit
surpasses another in virtue and in likeness, and each possess its own proper
being in itself, according to the degree of its nobleness. And God suffices
each one in particular, and each one, according to the measure of his love,
seeks God in the ground of his spirit; both here and in eternity.
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CHAPTER LXIII
OF THE ORDERING OF ALL THE VIRTUES THROUGH THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST
Now consider the order and the degrees of all the virtues and of all
holiness, with which we should go out to meet God through resemblance; that
so we may rest with Him in the unity.
The Gift of Fear
When a man lives in the Fear of God, in the moral virtues and in outward
works; and when he is obedient and submissive to Holy Church and to the
Divine commandments, and when he is ready and willing in simplicity of
intention to do all good things: then he is like unto God, through
faithfulness, and through the gathering of his will into the will of God,
both in doing and in leaving undone. And he rests in God, above likeness;
for through faithfulness and singleness of intention, he fulfils the will of
God, more or less according to the measure of his likeness; and through
love, he rests in his Beloved above likeness.
The Gift of Piety
And if he exerts himself well in that which he has received from God, then
God bestows upon him the spirit of Piety and Mercy. Thus he becomes gentle
of heart, meek and merciful. And thereby he becomes more full of life and
more like to God, and feels himself to be resting more in God, and to be
broader and deeper in virtue than before. And he savours this likeness and
this rest so much the better, the more his resemblance is increased.
The Gift of Knowledge
And if he here exerts himself well, with great zeal, and with a single
intention, and fights all that which is opposed to the virtues; this man
receives the third gift, which is Knowledge and Discretion. Thus he becomes
reasonable and discerning, and knows what to do and what to leave undone,
and where he must give and where he must take away. And through simplicity
of intention and godly love, this man rests in God above himself in the
unity; and he possesses himself in likeness, and he possesses all his works
with a greater delight, because he is obedient and submissive to the Father,
and has reason and discernment through the Son, and is gentle and merciful
through the Holy Ghost. And thus he bears a resemblance unto the Holy
Trinity, and he rests in God, through his love and the simplicity of his
intention. And herein the whole of the active life consists. Thus a man
should exert himself with great zeal, and should follow his single intention
with reason and discernment. And he must beware of all that is opposed to
the virtues, and must ever bow himself down in humility at the feet of
Christ: and in this way he will grow ever more and more in virtue and in
resemblance; and if he keeps himself thus he cannot err. Yet according to
this way, he still remains in the active life. For if a man practises and
clings to the activities of the heart and the diversity of works, more than
to the ground and reason of all works; and if he busies himself more with
the practice of the sacraments, with their forms and outward symbols, than
with the ground and the truth which are signified thereby: so he shall ever
remain an outward man. But he shall be saved by his good works and his
simplicity of intention.
The Gift of Strength
And therefore, if a man wishes to come nearer to God, and to exalt his
practice and his life, he must proceed from the works to their reason, and
from the forms to the truth; thereby he shall become master of his works,
and shall know truth, and shall come into the inward life. And God gives him
the fourth gift, which is the spirit of Strength: and thus he shall be able
to overcome joy and grief, profit and loss, hope and care in earthly things,
together with all kinds of hindrances and all multiplicity. And thus he
becomes free and detached from all creatures. When a man has become free
from all creaturely images, he is master of himself, and easily and without
labour becomes inward and recollected; and turns freely and without
hindrance to God, with fervent devotion, with lofty desire, with
thanksgiving and praise, and with a single intention. Thus he enters into
fruition of all his deeds and his whole life, inward and outward; for he
stands before the throne of the Holy Trinity, and often receives inward
consolation and sweetness from God. For he who serves at such a table with
thanksgiving and praise, and with inward reverence, often drinks of the
wine, and often eats of that which is left, and of the crumbs which fall
from the Lord’s table: and he continually possesses inward peace, through
the singleness of his intention. And if he will abide steadfastly before God
in thanksgiving and praise, and with uplifted purpose, the spirit of
Strength is doubled within him; for then he no longer loses himself in
bodily desires, in longings after consolation or sweetness, nor in any other
gift of God, nor in rest and peace of the heart. But he will forego all
gifts and every consolation, if so be that he may find Him Whom he loves. In
this way he is strong who abandons and overcomes the unrest of the heart and
earthly things; and doubly strong is he who also foregoes and overpasses
every consolation and heavenly gift. Thus a man transcends all creatures,
and possesses himself, powerful and free, through the gift of spiritual
Strength.
The gift of counsel
When, therefore, no creature can either overcome or impede a man from
persisting in his single and upward-striving intention, and when through
this Strength he is steadfast in praising God, seeking and meaning God above
all His gifts, then God bestows upon him the fifth gift, which is the gift
of Counsel In this gift the Father draws the man inwardly, and calls him to
His right hand, with the chosen in His unity. And the Son says in ghostly
wise within him: Follow Me to My Father: one thing is needful.” And the Holy
Ghost makes the heart expand and flame up in fiery love. And thence comes
the life of loving tumult and inward restlessness; for, in him who listens
to this counsel, there arises a storm of love, and nothing can satisfy him
save God alone. And therefore he abandons himself and all things, that he
may find Him in Whom he lives and in Whom all things are one. Here the man
should have God in mind in a simple way, and should master himself by means
of the reason, and should renounce all self-will, and should await in
freedom the unity which he desires, until the day when it is God’s pleasure
to give it. Thus the spirit of Counsel works in him in two ways: for that
man is great, and follows the precept and counsel of God, who abandons
himself and all things, and says, with an insatiable, impetuous and burning
love: Thy Kingdom come. But that man is greater still, and follows still
better the counsel of God, who overcomes his own self-will, and renounces it
in love, and says unto God with reverent submission: Thy Will be done in all
things and not my will. When Christ our dear Lord approached His passion, He
said those very words unto His Father, in humble abnegation of Himself; and
they were to Him the most happy, and to us the most wholesome, and to the
Father the most lovable, and to the devil the most terrible, words which
Christ ever spoke; for, by His renunciation of self-will according to His
manhood, we are all saved. In this way the will of God now becomes to the
loving and humble man the highest joy, and the greatest desire of his
ghostly feelings: even though this will should lead him to hell, which is
impossible. And here nature is cast down into the depths, and God is exalted
most highly; and this man becomes capable of receiving all the gifts of God;
for he has denied himself, and has renounced his own self, and has given all
for all. And he therefore asks nothing and wills nothing but that which God
wishes to give him. That which God wills, this is his joy; and he who
surrenders himself to God in love is the most free of all men living. He
lives without care, for God cannot lose that which is His.
Now mark this: although God knows all hearts, yet such a man is often
tempted and tried of Him, whether he is able to renounce himself in freedom:
and by this, he may then become enlightened, and may live for the glory of
God and also for his own salvation. And that is why God sometimes takes him
from His right hand to His left, from heaven into hell, from all blessedness
into great misery; so that it seems to him as though he were forsaken and
despised of God and of all creatures. If, then, he has formerly renounced
himself and his own will in love and in joy, so that he sought not himself
but the good pleasure of God, he will easily renounce himself also in pains
and misery, so that in these too he will seek not himself but always the
glory of God. He who is willing to work great things is willing also to
suffer great things; but to bear and to suffer in resignation is nobler and
more pleasing to God, and more satisfying to our spirit, than to work great
things in a like resignation, for it is more contrary to our nature. And
this is why our spirit is more exalted and our nature more cast down by
grievous suffering than by great works done with equal love. When a man
maintains himself in this resignation, without any other preference, right
as one who neither wills nor knows anything else, then he possesses the
spirit of Counsel in two ways; for he satisfies the will and the counsel of
God in his working and his suffering, by self-surrender, and by submissive
obedience. And his nature is adorned most gloriously: and he is capable of
being enlightened according to
The Gift of Understanding
And therefore God gives him the sixth gift, which is the spirit of
Understanding. This gift we have already likened to a fountain with three
rills, for it establishes our spirit in the unity, it reveals Truth and it
brings forth a wide and general love. This gift may also be likened to
sunshine, for by its shining the sun fills the air with a simple brightness
and lights all forms, and shows the distinctions of all colours. And thereby
it shows forth its own power; and its heat is common to the whole world,
bringing forth fruits and useful things. So likewise does the first ray of
this gift bring about simplicity within the spirit. And this simplicity is
penetrated by a particular radiance even as the air of the heavens by the
splendour of the sun. For the grace of God, which is the ground of all
gifts, maintains itself essentially like to a simple light in our potential
understanding: and, by means of this simple light our spirit is made stable
and onefold and enlightened, and fulfilled of grace and Divine gifts: and
here it is like unto God through grace and Divine love. And since the spirit
is now like unto God, and means and loves God alone above all gifts, it will
no longer be satisfied by likeness, nor by a created brightness; for it has
both by nature and above nature a primal tendency towards the Abysmal Being
from which it has flowed forth. And the Unity of the Divine Being eternally
draws back all likeness into its unity. And here the spirit is enkindled
into fruition, and it melts into God as into its eternal rest; for the grace
of God is to God even as the sunshine is to the sun, and the grace of God is
the means and the way which leads us to God. And for this reason it shines
within us in simplicity, and makes us deiform, that is, like unto God. And
this likeness perpetually merges itself in God, and dies in God, and becomes
one with God, and remains one, for charity makes us one with God, and causes
us to remain one and to dwell in the One. Nevertheless we keep the eternal
likeness in the light of grace or of glory; thereby we possess ourselves
actively in charity and in the virtues. And we keep the union with God,
above our activity, in the nakedness of our spirit, in the Divine light,
where we possess God in rest, above all virtues. For charity in the likeness
must ever be at work; and union with God in fruitive love must ever be at
rest. And this is the working of love; for in one “Now” and at the same time
love works and rests in its Beloved. And the one is strengthened by the
other; for the higher the love, the greater the rest; and the greater the
rest, the deeper the love; for the one lives in the other, and whosoever
loves not, rests not, and whosoever rests not, loves not. And yet, some good
men think that they neither love nor rest in God; and this thought itself
comes from love. Because they desire to love more than they can, it seems to
them that their love falls short. And yet in this work they taste love and
rest; for none save the resigned, emptied and enlightened man can understand
how one may love in labour and rest in fruition. Yet every lover is one with
God in rest, and like unto God in the works of love; for God in His most
high nature, of which we bear the likeness, dwells in fruition in eternal
rest according to His Essential Unity, but works in eternal activity
according to the Trinity: and the one is the perfection of the other; for
rest abides in the Unity, and work in the Trinity. And thus they dwell
together throughout eternity. And, therefore, if a man is to taste of God,
he must love and if he will love, then he may taste. But if he lets himself
be satisfied with other things, he shall not be able to taste what God is.
And therefore we must possess ourselves in simplicity, in virtue, and in
likeness, and God above ourselves through love in rest and unity. And this
is the first way in which the man who is common to all is made stable.
When the air is fulfilled with the brightness of the sun, the beauty and the
wealth of the whole world are revealed, and the eyes of men become
enlightened and rejoice in the manifold diversity of colours. And so it is,
when we are onefold within ourselves, and our power of understanding is
enlightened and the Spirit of Understanding shines through it. Then we can
become aware of the high attributes which are in God, and which are the
causes of all the works which flow forth from Him. Although all men may
understand the works, and God through His works; yet no one can truly
understand, neither in their appearance nor in their reality, the attributes
of the works of God as they are in their ground, save by means of this gift.
For this teaches us to seek out and to recognise our own nobleness, and it
gives us the power to discern the virtues and all practices, and the way in
which we should live without error in accordance with eternal Truth: and he
who is enlightened by it can dwell in the spirit, and can, with enlightened
reason, rightly apprehend and understand all things in heaven and on earth.
And therefore such a one walks in heaven, and beholds and apprehends with
all saints the nobility of his Beloved, His incomprehensible height, His
abysmal depth, length and breadth, wisdom and truth, His bounty and His
unspeakable generosity, and all those loveworthy attributes which are in God
our Lover without number, and without limit in His most high nature: for all
this is He Himself. Then that enlightened man lowers his eyes, and beholds
himself and all other men and all creatures, and observes how God in His
free generosity has created them in nature and endowed them in many ways,
and how, above nature, it is His pleasure to endow them and to enrich them
with Himself, if they will but seek and desire Him. All such reasoning
observation of the manifold diversities of the Divine riches rejoices our
spirit, if, through Divine love, we have died unto ourselves in God, and if
we live and walk in the spirit, and taste of the things which are eternal.
This gift of Understanding shows us the unity which we possess in God
through the fruitive immersion of love, and also the likeness to God which
we have in ourselves through charity and the works of virtue. And it gives
to us light and brightness in which we can walk with discernment in the ways
of the spirit, and can seek out and recognise God in ghostly similitudes,
and also ourselves, and all things according to the mode and the measure of
that light and according to the will of God and the greater nobility of our
understanding. This is the second degree in which the man who is common to
all may be enlightened.
According to the measure in which the air is irradiated by the brightness of
the sun, so too the heat increases and brings all things to fruitfulness.
When our reason and understanding are so enlightened, that they can
recognise and distinguish Divine truth, then the will, that is, the power of
love, grows hotter and streams forth in abundant loyalty and love towards
all men in common. For this gift, through the knowledge of truth which is
imparted to us in its light, establishes in us a wide-stretching love toward
all in common. Now the most simple are also the most tranquil, and have the
most peace in themselves; and are the most deeply immersed in God; and are
most enlightened in understanding, and most fruitful in good works, and in
outflowing love toward all in common. And they are hindered least, for they
are most like unto God; for God is simplicity in His Being, clarity in His
understanding, and outflowing and universal love in His works. And the more
we are like unto God in these three things, so much the more closely are we
united with Him. And for this reason we must remain simple in our ground,
and must apprehend all things by means of enlightened reason, and must flow
forth through all things in universal love. So likewise the sun in the
heavens, though it abides in itself simple and unchanged, sends forth its
light and heat to the whole world in common.
Now understand how we should live with enlightened reason in universal love.
The Father is the Origin of the whole Godhead according to Essence and
according to Personality. We therefore should bow down in spirit, in humble
awe, before the sublimity of the Father: and thereby we possess humility,
the foundation of all the virtues. We should fervently adore, that is to
say, we should honour and reverence, the mightiness of the Father, because
He, in His might, creates and preserves all things out of nothing. And
thereby we shall be lifted up in ghostly wise. We should offer praise and
thanks and everlasting service to the faithfulness and love of God, Who has
freed us from the fetters of the enemy and from eternal death: and thereby
we shall be made free. We should present and bewail before the wisdom of God
the blindness and ignorance of human nature; and should crave that all men
may become enlightened, and may attain to the knowledge of truth: thus God
shall be known and honoured by them. We should pray for the mercy of God
upon sinners, that thus they may be converted, and may grow in virtue: thus
God shall be loved by them with a desirous love. We should give generously
to all those who have need of it of the rich treasures of God, that
therewith they may all be filled, and may flow back towards God; and thus
God shall be possessed by them all. We should offer to the Father, with awe
and reverence, all the service and all the works which Christ, according to
His manhood, fulfilled in love: thus all our prayers shall be heard. We
should also offer to the Father in Christ Jesus all the fervent devotion of
the angels and the saints and the just: so we shall be united with them all
in the glory of Godly We should also offer up to the Father the whole
service of Holy Church, and the Holy Sacrifice of all the priests, and all
that we may achieve and think, in the name of Christ; that thereby we may go
out to meet God through Christ, and may become like unto Him in universal
love, and may transcend all likeness in simplicity, and may be united with
Him within the Essential Unity. We should ever abide in oneness with God,
and should eternally flow forth with God and all His saints in universal
love, and continually return with thankfulness and praise, and immerse
ourselves in fruitive love in the Essential Rest. This is the richest life
of which I know: and in it we possess the gift of Understanding.
The Gift of Wisdom
Now understand this well: when we turn within ourselves in contemplation,
the fruitive unity of God is like to a darkness, a somewhat which is
unconditioned and incomprehensible. And the spirit turns inward through love
and through simplicity of intention, because it is active in all virtues,
offering itself up in fruition above all virtues. In this loving
introversion, there arises the seventh gift, which is the spirit of
Savouring Wisdom; [63] and it saturates the simplicity of our spirit, soul
and body, with wisdom and with ghostly savours. And it is a ghostly touch or
stirring within the unity of our spirit; and it is an inpouring and a source
of all grace, all gifts and all virtues. And, in this touch of God, each man
savours his exercise and his life according to the power of the touch and
the measure of his love. And this Divine stirring is the inmost mediator
between God and ourselves, between rest and activity, between the
conditioned and the unconditioned, between eternity and time. And God works
this ghostly touching within us first of all, before all gifts; and yet it
is known and tasted by us last of all. For only when we have lovingly sought
God in all our practices even to the inward deeps of our ground, do we first
feel the gushing in of all the graces and gifts of God; and we feel this
touch in the unity of our highest powers, above reason, but not without
reason, for we understand in truth that we are touched. But if we would know
what this is and whence it comes, then reason and all creaturely observation
fail. For though the air be illuminated by the sunlight, and the eyes be
sharp and sound, if one would follow the rays which bring the brightness,
and look at the disc of the sun, the eyes would fail in their activity, and
would only receive the lustre of the rays in a passive way. So likewise, the
reflection of the Incomprehensible Light in the unity of our highest power
is so intense that all creaturely activity which works in distinction must
fail. And here our activity must passively endure the interior working of
God, which is the source of all Divine gifts. For could we receive God
Himself into our comprehension, He would give Himself to us without
intermediary; but this is impossible to us because we are too narrow and too
little to comprehend God. And therefore He pours His gifts into us according
to the measure of our comprehension and the worthiness of our practices. For
the fruitful unity of God ever abides above the unity of our powers and ever
demands of us likeness in love and in virtues. And that is why we are
touched again and again, that we may each time be renewed and become more
like Him in the virtues. And, through these renewed touches, the spirit
falls into hunger and thirst, and would taste through and through, and pass
through and through the whole abyss in a storm of love, that thereby it may
be satisfied. Hence there comes an eternal, hungry craving, and an eternal
unsatisfied desire. For all loving spirits desire and strive after God, each
according to its nobleness and the measure in which it has been touched by
God; yet God remains eternally incomprehensible by way of our active
desires, and therefore there abides in us, together with all saints, an
eternal hunger, and an eternal desirous introversion. And in the meeting
with God, the radiance and the heat are so great and so limitless that all
spirits must fail in their activity, and must melt and vanish away in
sensible love in the unity of their spirit. And here they must passively
endure as sheer creatures the working of God. And here our spirit and Divine
grace and all our virtues are one sensible love without activity; for our
spirit has spent itself and has itself become love. And here the spirit is
simple and susceptible of all gifts and is capable of every virtue. And, in
this ground of sensible love, there dwells the gushing spring, that is, the
inpouring or inward working of God, which at every hour moves us and urges
us and draws us inward and causes us to flow forth into new works of virtue.
Thus I have shown to you the ground and the condition of all the virtues.
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[63] “Smakender wijsheit”: “tasting wisdom.” Taste and touch, the most
intimate of the bodily senses, are those most frequently used by Ruysbroeck
as images of the soul’s apprehensions of God.
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CHAPTER LXIV
OF THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF THE MOST INTERIOR LIFE
Now understand this well: that measureless Splendour of God, which together
with the incomprehensible brightness, is the cause of all gifts and of all
virtues—that same Uncomprehended Light transfigures the fruitive tendency of
our spirit and penetrates it in a way that is wayless; that is, through the
Uncomprehended Light. And in this light the spirit immerses itself in
fruitive rest; for this rest is wayless and fathomless, and one can know of
it in no other way than through itself—that is, through rest. For, could we
know and comprehend it, it would fall into mode and measure; then it could
not satisfy us, but rest would become an eternal restlessness. And for this
reason, the simple, loving and immersed tendency of our spirit works within
us a fruitive love; and this fruitive love is abysmal. And the abyss of God
calls to the abyss; that is, of all those who are united with the Spirit of
God in fruitive love. This inward call is an inundation of the essential
brightness, and this essential brightness, enfolding us in an abysmal love,
causes us to be lost to ourselves, and to flow forth from ourselves into the
wild darkness of the Godhead. And, thus united without means, and made one
with the Spirit of God, we can meet God through God, and everlastingly
possess with Him and in Him our eternal bliss.
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CHAPTER LXV
OF THREE KINDS OF MOST INWARD PRACTICES
This most inward life is practised in three ways.
At times, the inward man performs his introspection simply, according to the
fruitive tendency, above all activity and above all virtues, through a
simple inward gazing in the fruition of love. And here he meets God without
intermediary. And from out the Divine Unity, there shines into him a simple
light and this light shows him Darkness and Nakedness and Nothingness. [64]
In the Darkness, he is enwrapped and falls into somewhat which is in no
wise, even as one who has lost his way. In the Nakedness, he loses the
perception and discernment of all things, and is transfigured and penetrated
by a simple light. In the Nothingness, all his activity fails him, for he is
vanquished by the working of God’s abysmal love, and in the fruitive
inclination of his spirit he vanquishes God, and becomes one spirit with
him. And in this oneness with the Spirit of God, he enters into a fruitive
tasting and possesses the Being of God. And he is filled, according to the
measure in which he has sunk himself in his essential being with the abysmal
delights and riches of God. And from these riches an envelopment and a
plenitude of sensible love flow forth into the unity of the higher powers.
And from this plenitude of sensible love, a savoury and penetrating
satisfaction flows forth into the heart and the bodily powers. And through
this inflow the man becomes immovable within, and helpless as regards
himself and all his works. And in the deeps of his ground he knows and feels
nothing, in soul or in body, but a singular radiance with a sensible
well-being and an all-pervading saviour. This is the first way, and it is
the way of emptiness; for it makes a man empty of all things, and lifts him
up above activity and above all the virtues. And it unites the man with God,
and brings about a firm perseverance in the most interior practices which he
can cultivate. When, however, any restlessness, or working of the virtues,
puts intermediaries, or images, between the inward man and the naked
introversion which he desires, then he is hindered in this exercise; for
this way consists in a going out, beyond all things, into the Emptiness.
This is the first form of the most inward exercise.
At times such an inward man turns towards God with ardent desire and
activity; that he may glorify and honour Him, and offer up and annihilate in
the love of God, his selfhood and all that he is able to do. And here he
meets God through an intermediary. This intermediary is the gift of
Savouring Wisdom, the ground and origin of all virtues; which enkindles and
moves all good men according to the measure of their love, and at times so
greatly stirs and enkindles the inward man through love, that all the gifts
of God, and all that God may give, except the gift of Himself, seem too
little to him, and cannot satisfy him, but rather increase his impatience.
For he has an inward perception or feeling in his ground; where all the
virtues begin and end, where love dwells, and where with ardent desire he
offers up all his virtues to God. And here the hunger and thirst of love
become so great that he perpetually surrenders himself, and gives up his own
works, and empties himself, and is noughted in love, for he is hungry and
thirsty for the taste of God; and, at each irradiation of God, [65] he is
seized by God, and more than ever before is newly touched by love. Living he
dies, and dying he lives again. And in this way the desirous hunger and
thirst of love are renewed in him every hour.
This is the second way, which is the way of longing, in which love dwells in
the Divine likeness, and longs and craves to unite itself with God. This way
is more profitable and honourable to us than the first, for it is the source
of the first; for none can enter into the rest which is above all works save
the man who has loved love with desire and with activity. And this is why
the grace of God and our active love must both go before and follow after;
that is to say, they must be practised both before and after. For without
acts of love we cannot merit anything, neither achieve God, nor keep the
possession of that which we have acquired through the works of love. And for
this reason no one who has power over himself, and can practise love, should
be idle. When, however, a good man lingers in any gift of God, or any
creature, he will be hindered in this most inward exercise; for this
exercise is a hunger which nothing can still, save God alone.
From these two ways the third way arises; and this is an inward life
according to justice. Now understand this: God comes to us without ceasing
both with means and without means, and demands of us both action and
fruition, in such a way that the one never impedes, but always strengthens,
the other. And therefore the most inward man lives his life in these two
ways: namely, in work and in rest. [66] And in each he is whole and
undivided; for he is wholly in God because he rests in fruition, and he is
wholly in himself because he loves in activity: and he is perpetually called
and urged by God to renew both the rest and the work. And the justice of the
spirit desires to pay every hour that which is demanded of it by God. And
therefore, at each irradiation of God, the spirit turns inward, in action
and in fruition; and thus it is renewed in every virtue, and is more deeply
immersed in fruitive rest. For God gives, in one gift, Himself and His
gifts; and the spirit gives, at each introversion, itself and all its works.
For by means of the simple irradiation of God and the fruitive tendency and
melting away of love, the spirit has been united with God, and is
incessantly transported into rest. And through the gifts of Understanding
and Savouring Wisdom, it is touched in an active way, and perpetually
enlightened and enkindled in love. And there is shown and presented to it in
the spirit all that one may desire. It is hungry and thirsty, for it beholds
the food of the angels and the heavenly drink. It works diligently in love,
for it beholds its rest. It is a pilgrim; and it sees its country. In love
it strives for victory; for it sees its crown. Consolation, peace, joy,
beauty and riches, and all that can delight it, are shown without measure in
ghostly images to the reason which is enlightened in God. And through this
showing and the touch of God, love remains active. For this just man has
established a true life in the spirit, in rest and in work, which shall
endure eternally; but, after this life, it shall be changed into a higher
state. Thus the man is just; and he goes towards God with fervent love in
eternal activity; and he goes in God with fruitive inclination in eternal
rest. And he dwells in God, and yet goes forth towards all creatures in
universal love, in virtue, and in justice. And this is the supreme summit of
the inward life. All those men who do not possess both rest and work in one
and the same exercise, have not yet attained this justice. This just man
cannot be hindered in his introversion, for he turns inward both in fruition
and in work; but he is like to a double mirror, which receives images on
both sides. For in his higher part, the man receives God with all His gifts;
and, in his lower part, he receives bodily images through the senses. Now he
can enter into himself at will, and can practise justice without hindrance.
But man is unstable in this life, and that is why he often turns outwards,
and works in the senses, without need and without the command of the
enlightened reason; and thus he falls into venial sins. But in the loving
introversion of the just man all venial sins are like to drops of water in a
glowing furnace.
And with this I leave the inward life.
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[64] This is that “contemplation in caligine” celebrated by all Christian
mystics of the Dionysian tradition. It introduces consciousness into a
universe which seems dark, bare, and nought to the intellect, because it
transcends all the conceptions with which that intellect is able to deal;
being indeed “dark with excess of light.” Thus Dionysius says: “We pray that
we may enter the Radiant Darkness, and through blindness and ignorance may
see and know that this blindness and ignorance is itself above sight and
knowledge” (Mystic Theology, cap. 1); and again, “The Divine Dark is the
inaccessible Light in which God is said to dwell. Into this dark, invisible
because of its surpassing brightness and unsearchable because of the
abundance of its supernatural torrents of light, all enter who are deemed
worthy to know and see God: and by the very fact of not seeing or knowing,
are truly in Him Who is above all sight and knowledge.” (Letter to Dorothy
the Deacon.) So, too, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing—“Let be this
everywhere and this aught, in comparison of this nowhere and this nought.
Reck thee never if thy wits cannot reason of this nought; for surely I love
it much the better. It is so worthy a thing in itself that they cannot
reason thereupon. this nought may better be felt than seen: for it is full
blind and full dark to them that have but little while looked thereupon.
Nevertheless, if I shall soothlier say, a soul is more blinded in feeling of
it for abundance of ghostly light, than for any darkness or wanting of
bodily light.” (The Cloud of Unknowing, cap. 68.)
[65] The Flemish “inblicke Gods” suggests the sudden flashing glance of
Divine enlightenment: keen, vivid, but transitory, like lightning in the
sky.
[66] This conception of the dual life which man possesses in the likeness of
God appears to be derived from Dionysius, who says: “That which is
established above both every rest and every movement, and moves each thing
according to the law of its own being in its own movement, is both the Rest
and the Movement of all.” (Divine Names, cap. 1.)
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CHAPTER LXVI
SHOWING HOW SOME MEN LIVE CONTRARY TO THESE EXERCISES
Now some men, who seem to be righteous, yet live contrary to these three
ways and to every virtue. Let every one observe and prove himself! Every man
who is not drawn and enlightened of God is not touched by love, and has
neither the active cleaving with desire [67] nor the simple and loving
tendency to fruitive rest. And therefore such a one cannot unite himself
with God; for all those who live without supernatural love are inclined
towards themselves and seek their rest in outward things. For all creatures
by their nature tend towards rest: and therefore, rest is sought both by the
good and by the evil, in divers ways.
Now mark this: when a man is bare and imageless in his senses, and empty and
idle in his higher powers, [68] he enters into rest through mere nature; and
this rest may be found and possessed within themselves in mere nature by all
creatures, without the grace of God, whenever they can strip themselves of
images and of all activity. But in this the loving man cannot find his rest,
for charity and the inward touch of God’s grace will not be still: and so
the inward man cannot long remain in natural rest within himself.
But now mark the way in which this natural rest is practised. It is a
sitting still, without either outward or inward acts, in vacancy, in order
that rest may be found and may remain untroubled. But a rest which is
practised in this way is unlawful; for it brings with it in men a blindness
and ignorance, and a sinking down into themselves without activity. Such a
rest is nought else than an idleness, into which the man has fallen, and in
which he forgets himself and God and all things in all that has to do with
activity. This rest is wholly contrary to the supernatural rest, which one
possesses in God; for that is a loving self-mergence joined to a simple
gazing into the Incomprehensible Brightness. This rest in God, which is
actively sought with inward longing, and is found in fruitive inclination,
and is eternally possessed in the self-mergence of love, and which, when
possessed, is sought none the less: this rest is exalted above the rest of
mere nature as greatly as God is exalted above all creatures. And that is
why all those men are deceived who have self in mind and sink down in the
natural rest, and neither seek God in desire, nor find Him in fruitive love;
for the rest which they find consists in their own idleness, to which they
are inclined by nature and by habit. And in this natural rest one cannot
find God, but it certainly leads a man into a bare vacancy, which may be
found by Pagans and Jews and all men, how wicked soever they may be, if they
can live in their sins without the reproach of their conscience, and can
empty themselves of every image and of all activity. In this bare vacancy
the rest is pleasant and great. This rest is in itself no sin; for it exists
in all men by nature, whenever they make themselves empty. But when a man
wishes to practise and possess it without acts of virtue, he falls into
spiritual pride and a self-complacency, from which he seldom recovers. And
he sometimes fancies himself to have and to be that to which he shall never
attain. When a man thus possesses this rest in false quietude, and all
loving adherence seems a hindrance to him, he clings to himself in his rest,
and lives contrary to the first way in which man is united with God: and
this is the beginning of all ghostly error.
Now consider a similitude of this: the angels who turned inward towards God
in love and fruition, with all that they had received from Him, found
beatitude and eternal rest; but those who turned towards themselves, and
sought rest in themselves with self-complacency in the natural light, their
rest was short and was unlawful. And they were blinded, and there was a wall
of separation between them and the external light, and they fell into
darkness and eternal restlessness. This is the first contrary way; which one
possesses by resting in false quietude.
Now mark this: when a man wishes to possess inward rest in idleness, without
inward and desirous cleaving to God, then he is ready for all errors; for he
is turned away from God, and inclined towards himself, in natural love,
seeking and desiring consolation and sweetness and everything that pleases
him. And such a man is like to a merchant, for in all his activity he is
turned only towards himself, and seeks and means his own rest and his own
profit, more than the glory of God. A man who thus lives in mere natural
love, always possesses himself in self-love without self-renunciation. Such
men often lead a hard life with great works of penitence, that they may
become known and renowned for their great sanctity, and also that they may
merit a great reward; for all natural love is favourably disposed to itself
and likes to receive great honours in time and a great reward in eternity.
And these men have many special desires, and pray and beseech God for many
particular things. And thus they are often deceived; for sometimes, through
the work of the devil, those things which they desire happen to them, and
then they ascribe this to their sanctity, and hold themselves worthy of them
all; for such people are proud, and neither touched nor enlightened by God.
And therefore they dwell within themselves, and a small consolation may
greatly rejoice them, for they know not what they lack. And they are wholly
attached, in their desire, to inward savours and the spiritual refreshment
of their nature. And this is called spiritual lust; for it is an inordinate
attachment in natural love, which is always directed towards itself, and
seeks its own profit in all things.
Such men are always spiritually proud and self-willed; and this is why their
desires and lusts are sometimes so vehemently set upon the things which they
desire, and wilfully strive to acquire from God, so that they are often
deceived, and some of them also become possessed by the devil. All these men
live contrary to charity and to the loving introversion in which a man
offers himself up, with all that he can achieve, for the honour and love of
God; and in which nothing can give him rest or satisfaction but a single
incomprehensible Good, which is God alone. For charity is a bond of love, in
which we are drawn up to God, and through which we renounce ourselves, and
whereby we are united with God and God is united with us. But natural love
turns back towards itself, and towards its own profit, and ever abides
alone. Nevertheless, in its outward works, natural love is as like unto
charity as two hairs from the same head; but the intentions are different.
For the good man always seeks and means and desires, with an aspiring heart,
to glorify God; but in natural love a man has always himself and his own
profit in mind. Therefore, when natural love opposes and conquers true
charity the man falls into four sins; namely, spiritual pride, avarice,
gluttony, and lust. And in this way Adam fell in Paradise, and all human
nature with him, for he loved himself inordinately with natural love, and so
he turned away from God, and scorned in his pride the commandment of God.
And he desired knowledge and wisdom in his avarice; and he sought pleasant
tastes and satisfactions in gluttony; and after that he was moved by lust.
But Mary was a living Paradise. She found the grace which Adam lost, and
much more besides, for she is the Mother of Love. She turned in active
charity towards God, and conceived Christ in humility. And she offered Him
up to the Father with all His sufferings in generosity; and she never tasted
of consolation, nor of any gift, in gluttony; and her whole life was in
purity. Whosoever follows her shall conquer all that is contrary to the
virtues, and shall enter into the kingdom where she reigns with her Son in
eternity.
So, when a man possesses the natural rest in bare vacancy, whilst in all his
works he has himself in mind, and he continues obstinately disobedient in
his self-will, he cannot be united with God; for he lives without charity in
unlikeness to God. And here begins the third contrary way, which is the most
noxious of all; and this is an unrighteous life, full of ghostly error and
of all perversity.
Now mark well what follows, lest you should not understand it well. All
these men are, in their own opinion, God-seeing men, and believe themselves
the holiest of all men living. Yet they live contrary and unlike to God and
all saints and all good men. Observe the following marks: thus you will be
able to recognise them both by their words and their works. By means of the
natural rest which they feel and possess in themselves in bare vacancy, they
believe themselves to be free, and to be united with God without means, and
to be above all the customs of Holy Church, and above the commandments of
God, and above the law, and above every work of virtue which can in any way
be done. For they think their idleness to be so great a thing that it may
not be troubled by any work, how good soever it be; for this idleness is
nobler than any virtue. And therefore they maintain themselves in pure
passivity, without any activity towards above or towards below; like a loom,
which does not work of itself, but awaits its master, and the time when he
wishes to work. For they deem that if they worked themselves, God would be
hindered in His work. And therefore they are empty of every virtue; and
indeed so empty, that they will neither praise nor thank God. They have no
knowledge and no love, no will, no prayer, no desire; for they believe that
all that they could pray for, and desire, is already possessed of them. And
so they are poor of spirit, for they are without will, and have forsaken
everything, and live without any personal preferences: and thus it seems to
them that they are empty, and have overcome everything, and have in their
possession all those things for which the customs of Holy Church have been
instituted and ordained. And so, they say, no one, not even God, can give
them anything, or can take away anything from them; for they have, in their
own opinion, transcended all customs and all virtues, and have entered into
the pure emptiness, and are released from every virtue. And this release
from all virtues in emptiness needs, they say, more labour than the
acquisition of the virtues. And therefore they would be free, and obedient
to none; neither pope, nor bishop, nor parson. Even though outwardly they
seem to be so, inwardly they are submissive to none, neither in will nor in
works; for they are in every respect empty of all that Holy Church
practises. And therefore they say, as long as a man strives after virtue,
and desires to fulfil the good pleasure of God, he is still imperfect; for
he is still amassing virtues, and knows not this spiritual poverty and
emptiness. But they are themselves, in their own opinion, lifted up above
all the choirs of saints and angels, and above every reward which one can in
any way merit. And therefore they say that their virtues can nevermore
increase, nor can they themselves deserve a greater reward, nor commit any
sin any more; for, they say, they live without will, and have surrendered
their spirit to God in rest and bareness, and are one with God, and in
themselves have become nothing. And therefore they can do without hindrance
all that the bodily nature desires, for they have attained to the state of
innocence, and no law has sway over them. When therefore it happens that
their emptiness of spirit is troubled or hindered by any natural lust, they
yield to nature, that their emptiness of spirit may remain untroubled. And
that is why they do not keep Lent or Ember-days, or any other commandment,
save when they do it for the sake of their neighbours; for they live without
conscience in all things. I hope that of such folk not many are to be found;
but those who are like them are the most wicked and vile of all men living.
And they are sometimes possessed of the Fiend; and then they are so cunning
that one cannot vanquish them on the grounds of reason. But through Holy
Scripture and the teaching of Christ and our Faith, we may prove that they
are deceived.
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[67] This adherence or deliberate cleaving of the loving will to God is the
supreme work of the self in the Divine union and is never transcended. Its
absence marks the distinction between heretical quietism and true
contemplation.
[68] Ruysbroeck’s word “ledich” means both empty and idle: a blank passivity
of the mind and of the will.
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CHAPTER LXVII
OF ANOTHER KIND OF PERVERTED MEN
Now we find yet another kind of perverted men, who are in some points
different from those already described; though they too believe themselves
to be exempted from all works, and to be instruments with which God works
what He wills. And therefore they say that they are in a purely passive
state without activity; and that the works which God works through them are
noble and meritorious beyond anything that another man, working his works
himself by the grace of God, could do. And therefore they say that they are
God-passive men, [69] and that they do nothing of themselves, but that God
works all their works. And they say they can do no sin: for it is God Who
does all their works, and in themselves they are empty of all things. And
all that God wills is worked through them, and nothing else. These men have
surrendered themselves to inward passivity in their emptiness; and live
without preference for any one thing. And they have a resigned and humble
appearance, and can very well endure and suffer with equanimity all that
befalls them; for they hold themselves to be the instruments with which God
works according to His will. Such men in many of their ways and works are
like in their conduct to good men, but in some things they differ from them;
for all things to which they are inwardly urged, whether these be virtuous
or not, they believe to proceed from the Holy Ghost. And in this and in
suchlike things, they are deceived; for the Spirit of God neither wills,
counsels, nor works, in any man things which are contrary to the teaching of
Christ and Holy Christianity.
Such folk are hard to recognise, save by the man who is enlightened, and has
received the power of discerning spirits and divine truth; for many amongst
them are cunning in outward things and know well how to cloak and make fair
their perversity. And they are so self-willed, and hold so fast to their own
peculiar ideas, that they would sooner die than abandon one point of the
thing they have laid hold on; for they hold themselves the holiest and most
enlightened of all men living.
These men differ from the first kind in this, that they say that they can
grow and acquire merit: whereas the others hold that they cannot merit
anything more, for they possess themselves in unity and emptiness, wherefrom
one cannot rise higher, because here there is no more activity. These are
all perverted men, and are the most wicked of the living; and they are to be
abhorred as if they were the Fiend in hell. But if you have well understood
that teaching which I have given you heretofore in various ways, you will
perceive that these men are deceived. For they live contrary to God and
righteousness and all saints; and they are all precursors of the Antichrist,
preparing his way in every unbelief. For they would be free, without the
commandments of God, and without virtues; and empty and united with God,
without love and charity. And they would be God-seeing men without loving
and steadfast contemplation, and the holiest of all men living without the
works of holiness. And they say that they rest in Him Whom they do not love;
and are uplifted into That which they neither will nor desire. And they say
that they are stripped of every virtue, and of diligent devotion to God,
lest they should hinder God in His working. They confess, indeed, that God
is the Creator and Lord over all creatures, and yet they will neither thank
nor praise Him. They confess that His power and His riches are without end,
and yet they say that He can neither give nor take from them anything,
neither can they grow nor acquire merit.
And sometimes too they uphold the opposite, and say that they merit a
greater wage than other men; for God does their works, and they themselves
endure passively the workings of God, without co-operation, since these are
worked of Him. And in this, they say, lies the supreme merit. But this is
altogether illusion and impossibility. For the activity of God is in itself
eternal and unchangeable; for He is His own activity and nought else. And in
this working there can be no growth, nor merit of any creature whatsoever;
for here there is nothing but God, Who can neither wax nor wane. But the
creatures, by virtue of God, have their own activity, in nature and in
grace, and also in glory: and if their works end in grace here, they shall
continue in glory for ever. Now were it possible, which it is not, that a
spiritual creature could be annihilated as regards its activity, and thereby
became even as empty as it was when it was not made—that is, that it could
become wholly one with God, as it was then—it could acquire no merit, no
more than it could before creation. Further, it would be neither holier nor
more blessed than a stone or a log of wood; for without our own work and the
knowledge and love of God, we cannot be blessed. Though God would indeed be
blessed, as He is eternally, yet it would not avail us. And therefore that
which these say of their emptiness is all deceit; for they wish to excuse
all wickedness and perversity, and give these out as nobler and more sublime
than all the virtues. And they would cunningly disguise the worst, so that
it should seem the best. All these are contrary to God and all His saints;
but they have a likeness to the damned spirits in hell, for these too are
without charity and without knowledge, and are empty of thanksgivings and
praise and of all loving adherence; and this is the cause, why they remain
damned in eternity. And that these folk may be like to them, they lack only
this, that they should fall from time into eternity, and that the justice of
God be revealed in their works.
But Christ the Son of God, Who according to His manhood is the pattern and
the head of all good men, showing them how to live, He was and is and
everlastingly shall abide with all His members, that is, with all His
saints, in love and longing, thankfulness and praise, toward His heavenly
Father. Nevertheless, His soul was and is united with the Divine Essence and
blessed therein. But to this bare idleness He never could, nor ever shall,
come; for His glorified soul, and all who are blessed, have an eternal
loving striving, even as those who have tasted of God, and are hungry and
thirsty, and can nevermore be satisfied. Yet that very soul of Christ, and
all saints, partake of God above all desires, where there is nothing but the
One. This is the eternal bliss of God and of all His chosen. And that is why
fruition and activity are the blessedness of Christ and all His saints; and
this is the life of all good men, each according to the measure of his love.
And this is a righteousness that shall never pass away. And that is why we
should adorn ourselves, from without and from within, with virtues and with
goodly behaviour, as do the saints; and should lovingly and humbly exercise
ourselves before the eyes of God in all our works. Then we shall meet God by
means of all His gifts. And then we shall be touched by sensible love, and
shall be filled with loyalty towards all. And so we shall flow forth and
flow back again in true charity, and shall be firmly established and
steadfast within ourselves in simple peace and in the Divine likeness. And
by means of this likeness and fruitive love and the Divine brightness, we
shall be melted into the unity, and shall meet God through God, without
means, in fruitive rest. And so we shall eternally remain within, and yet
continually flow forth and incessantly flow back again. And herewith we
shall possess a veritable inward life in all perfection, That this may come
to pass in us, so help us God. AMEN.
THIS END OF THE SECOND BOOK
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[69] “God-lidende”: i.e. passively suffering God to act in and through them.
_________________________________________________________________
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HERE BEGINS
THE THIRD BOOK
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CHAPTER I
SHOWING THE THREE WAYS BY WHICH ONE ENTERS INTO THE GOD-SEEING LIFE
The inward lover of God, who possesses God in fruitive love, and himself in
adhering and active love, and his whole life in virtues according to
righteousness; through these three things, and by the mysterious revelation
of God, such an inward man enters into the God-seeing life. Yea, the lover
who is inward and righteous, him will it please God in His freedom to choose
and to lift up into a superessential contemplation, in the Divine Light and
according to the Divine Way. [70] This contemplation sets us in purity and
clearness above all our understanding, for it is a singular adornment and a
heavenly crown, and besides the eternal reward of all virtues and of our
whole life. And to it none can attain through knowledge and subtlety,
neither through any exercise whatsoever. Only he with whom it pleases God to
be united in His Spirit, and whom it pleases Him to enlighten by Himself,
can see God, and no one else. The mysterious Divine Nature is eternally and
actively beholding and loving according to the Persons, and has everlasting
fruition in a mutual embrace of the Persons in the unity of the Essence. In
this embrace, in the essential Unity of God, all inward spirits are one with
God in the immersion of love; and are that same one which the Essence is in
Itself, according to the mode of Eternal Bliss. [71] And in this most high
unity of the Divine Nature, the heavenly Father is origin and beginning of
every work which is worked in heaven and on earth. And He says in the deep
sunken hiddenness of the spirit: Behold, the Bride groom cometh; go ye out
to meet Him.
These words we will now explain and set forth in their relation to that
superessential contemplation which is the source of all holiness, and of all
perfec tion of life to which one may attain. Few men can attain to this
Divine seeing, because of their own in capacity and the mysteriousness of
the light in which I one sees. And therefore no one will thoroughly
understand the meaning of it by any learning or subtle consideration of his
own; for all words, and all | that may be learnt and understood in a
creaturely way, are foreign to, and far below, the truth which I mean. But
he who is united with God, and is en lightened in this truth, he is able to
understand the truth by itself. For to comprehend and to under stand God
above all similitudes, such as He is in Himself, is to be God with God,
without intermediary, and without any otherness that can become a hindrance
or an intermediary. And therefore I beg every one who cannot understand
this, or feel it in the fruitive unity of his spirit, that he be not
offended at it, and leave it for that which it is: for that which I am going
to say is true, and Christ, the Eternal Truth, has said it Himself in His
teaching in many places, if we could but show and explain it rightly. And
therefore, whosoever wishes to understand this must have died to himself,
and must live in God, and must turn his gaze to the eternal light in the
ground of his spirit, where the Hidden Truth reveals Itself without means.
For our Heavenly Father wills that we should see; for He is the Father of
Light, and this is why He utters eternally, without intermediary and without
interruption, in the hiddenness of our spirit, one unique and abysmal word,
and no other. And in this word, He utters Himself and all things. And this
word is none other than: Behold. And this is the coming forth and the birth
of the Son of Eternal Light, in Whom all blessedness is known and seen.
Now if the spirit would see God with God in this Divine light without means,
there needs must be on the part of man three things.
The first is that he must be perfectly ordered from without in all the
virtues, and within must be unencumbered, and as empty of every outward work
as if he did not work at all: for if his emptiness is troubled within by
some work of virtue, he has an image; and as long as this endures within
him, he cannot contemplate.
Secondly, he must inwardly cleave to God, with adhering intention and love,
even as a burning and glowing fire which can never more be quenched. As long
as he feels himself to be in this state, he is able to contemplate.
Thirdly, he must have lost himself in a Waylessness and in a Darkness, in
which all contemplative men wander in fruition and wherein they never again
can find themselves in a creaturely way. In the abyss of this darkness, in
which the loving spirit has died to itself, there begin the manifestation of
God and eternal life. For in this darkness there shines and is born an
incomprehensible Light, which is the Son of God, in Whom we behold eternal
life. And in this Light one becomes seeing; and this Divine Light is given
to the simple sight of the spirit, where the spirit receives the brightness
which is God Himself, above all gifts and every creaturely activity, in the
idle emptiness in which the spirit has lost itself through fruitive love,
and where it receives without means the brightness of God, and is changed
without interruption into that brightness which it receives. Behold, this
mysterious brightness, in which one sees everything that one can desire
according to the emptiness of the spirit: this brightness is so great that
the loving contemplative, in his ground wherein he rests, sees and feels
nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that Simple Nudity which
enfolds all things, he finds himself, and feels himself, to be that same
Light by which he sees, and nothing else. [72] And this is the first
condition by which one becomes seeing in the Divine Light. Blessed are the
eyes which are thus seeing, for they possess eternal life.
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[70] This entrance of the soul into the God-seeing life is the equivalent of
Dante’s entrance into the Empyrean. ”. . . noi semo usciti fuore del maggior
corpo al ciel, ch’ é pura luce; luce intellettual piena d’amore, amor di
vero ben pien di letizia, letizia che trascende ogni dolzore.” (Par. xxx.
38.)
[71] So Dionysius: “The Beginning and Cause beyond all beginning of every
being, grasping all things superessentially in an irresistible embrace.”
(Celestial Hierarchy, cap. 7.)
[72] “When this takes place,” says Plotinus, “the soul will see both God and
herself, so far as it is lawful for her to see Him. And she will see herself
indeed illumined, and full of intelligible light; or rather, she will
perceive herself to be pure light.” (On the Good, or the One.)
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CHAPTER II
HOW THE ETERNAL BIRTH OF GOD IS RENEWED WITHOUT INTERRUPTION IN THE NOBILITY
OF THE SPIRIT
When we have thus become seeing, we can behold in joy the eternal coming of
our Bridegroom; and that is the second point of which we would speak. What
is this coming of our Bridegroom which is eternal? It is the new birth and a
new enlightenment without interruption; for the ground from which the Light
shines forth, and which is the Light itself, is life-giving and fruitful,
and therefore the manifestation of the Eternal Light is renewed without
ceasing in the hiddenness of the spirit. Behold, every creaturely work, and
every exercise of virtue, must here cease; for here God works alone in the
high nobility of the spirit. And here there is nothing but an eternal seeing
and staring at that Light, by that Light, and in that Light. And the coming
of the Bridegroom is so swift that He is perpetually coming, and yet
dwelling within with unfathomable riches; and ever coming anew, in His
Person, without interruption, with such new brightness that it seems as
though he had never come before. For His coming consists, beyond time, in an
eternal Now, which is ever received with new longings and new joy. Behold,
the delight and the joy which this Bridegroom brings with Him in His coming
are boundless and without measure, for they are Himself. And this is why the
eyes with which the spirit sees and gazes at its Bridegroom, have opened so
wide that they can never close again. For the spirit continues for ever to
see and to stare at the secret manifestation of God. And the grasp of the
spirit is opened so wide for the coming in of the Bridegroom, that the
spirit itself becomes that Breadth Which it grasps. And so God is grasped
and beheld through God; wherein rests all our blessedness. This is the
second point: in which we receive, without interruption, the eternal coming
of our Bridegroom in our spirit.
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CHAPTER III
HOW OUR SPIRIT IS CALLED TO GO OUT IN CONTEMPLATION AND FRUITION
Now the Spirit of God says in the secret outpouring of our spirit: Go ye
out, in an eternal contemplation and fruition, according to the way of God.
All the riches which are in God by nature we possess by way of love in God,
and God in us, through the unmeasured love which is the Holy Ghost, for in
this love one tastes of all that one can desire. And therefore through this
love we are dead to ourselves, and have gone forth in loving immersion into
Waylessness and Darkness. There the spirit is embraced by the Holy Trinity,
and dwells for ever within the superessential Unity, in rest and fruition.
And in that same Unity, according to Its fruitfulness, the Father dwells in
the Son, and the Son in the Father, and all creatures dwell in Both. And
this is above the distinction of the Persons; for here by means of the
reason we understand Fatherhood and Sonhood as the life-giving fruitfulness
of the Divine Nature.
Here there arise and begin an eternal going out and an eternal work which is
without beginning; for here there is a beginning with beginning. For, after
the Almighty Father had perfectly comprehended Himself in the ground of His
fruitfulness, so the Son, the Eternal Word of the Father, came forth as the
second Person in the Godhead. And, through the Eternal Birth, all creatures
have come forth in eternity, before they were created in time. So God has
seen and known them in Himself, according to distinction, in living ideas,
[73] and in an otherness from Himself; but not as something other in all
ways, for all that is in God is God. [74] This eternal going out and this
eternal life, which we have and are in God eternally, without ourselves, is
the cause of our created being in time. And our created being abides in the
Eternal Essence and is one with it in its essential existence. And this
eternal life and being, which we have and are in the eternal Wisdom of God,
is like unto God. For it has an eternal immanence in the Divine Essence,
without distinction; and through the birth of the Son it has an eternal
outflowing in a distinction and otherness, according to the Eternal Idea.
And through these two points it is so like unto God that He knows and
reflects Himself in this likeness without cessation, according to the
Essence and according to the Persons. For, though even here there are
distinction and otherness according to intellectual perception, yet this
likeness is one with that same Image of the Holy Trinity, which is the
wisdom of God and in which God beholds Himself and all things in an eternal
Now, without before and after. In a single seeing He beholds Himself and all
things. And this is the Image and the Likeness of God, and our Image and our
Likeness; for in it God reflects Himself and all things. In this Divine
Image all creatures have an eternal life, outside themselves, as in their
eternal Archetype, and after this eternal Image, and in this Likeness, we
have been made by the Holy Trinity. And therefore God wills that we shall go
forth from ourselves in this Divine Light, and shall reunite ourselves in a
supernatural way with this Image, which is our proper life, and shall
possess it with Him, in action and in fruition, in eternal bliss.
For we know well that the bosom of the Father is our ground and origin, in
which we begin our being and our life. And from our proper ground that is
from the Father and from all that lives in Him there shines forth an eternal
brightness, which is the birth of the Son. And in this brightness, that is,
in the Son, the Father knows Himself and all that lives in Him; for all that
He has, and all that He is, He gives to the Son, save only the property of
Fatherhood, which abides in Himself. And this is why all that lives in the
Father, unmanifested in the Unity, is also in the Son actively poured forth
into manifestation: and the simple ground of our Eternal Image ever remains
in darkness and in waylessness, but the brightness without limit which
streams forth from it, this reveals and brings forth within the Conditioned
the hiddenness of God. And all those men who are raised up above their
created being into a God-seeing life are one with this Divine brightness.
And they are that brightness itself, and they see feel, and find, even by
means of this Divine Light, that, as regards their uncreated essence, they
are that same onefold ground from which the brightness without limit shines
forth in the Divine way, and which, according to the simplicity of the
Essence, abides eternally onefold and wayless within. And this is why inward
and God-seeing men will go out in the way of contemplation, above reason and
above distinction and above their created being, through an eternal
intuitive gazing. By means of this inborn light they are transfigured, and
made one with that same light through which they see and which they see.
[75] And thus the God-seeing men follow after their Eternal Image, after
which they have been made; and they behold God and all things, without
distinction, in a simple seeing, in the Divine brightness. And this is the
most noble and the most profitable contemplation to which one can attain in
this life; for in this contemplation, a man best remains master of himself
and free. And at each loving introversion he may grow in nobility of life
beyond anything that we are able to understand; for he remains free and
master of himself in inwardness and virtue. And this gazing at the Divine
Light holds him up above all inwardness and all virtue and all merit, for it
is the crown and the reward after which we strive, and which we have and
possess now in this wise; for a God-seeing life is a heavenly life. But were
we set free from this misery and this exile, so we should have, as regards
our created being, a greater capacity to receive this brightness; and so the
glory of God would shine through us in every way better and more nobly. This
is the way above all ways, in which one goes out through Divine
contemplation and an eternal intuitive gazing, and in which one is
transfigured and transmuted in the Divine brightness. This going out of the
God-seeing man is also in love; for through the fruition of love he rises
above his created being, and finds and tastes the riches and the delights
which are God Himself, and which He causes to pour forth without
interruption in the hiddenness of the spirit, where the spirit is like unto
the nobility of God.
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[73] “In levenden redenen,” perhaps more exactly “in life-giving ideas.”
Surius, in his great Latin translation renders, this, “sub vividis
rationibus.” This is one of the passages in which the Platonic character of
Ruysbroeck’s doctrine is specially marked.
[74] Suso expresses this doctrine with even greater daring— “Mark this: in
eternity, all creatures are God in God; and there, there is no fundamental
difference between them, save that which we have said. And in so much as
they are in God, they are the same life, the same being, the same power:
they are the same One, and nothing less. (Suso, The Book of Truth, cap. 3.)
[75] Thus Dionysius says, “We should know that our mind has the power of
thought, through which it perceives intellectual things: but the union
through which it is brought into contact with things beyond itself surpasses
the nature of the mind. We must therefore contemplate Divine things by means
of this union; not in ourselves, but by standing out of ourselves with our
whole selves and becoming wholly of God. For it is better to be of God than
of ourselves.” (Divine Names, cap 7.)
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CHAPTER IV
OF A DIVINE MEETING WHICH TAKES PLACE IN THE HIDDENNESS OF OUR SPIRIT
When the inward and God-seeing man has thus attained to his Eternal Image,
and in this clearness, through the Son, has entered into the bosom of the
Father: then he is enlightened by Divine truth, and he receives anew, every
moment, the Eternal Birth, and he goes forth according to the way of the
light, in a Divine contemplation. And here there begins the fourth and last
point; namely, a loving meeting, in which, above all else, our highest
blessedness consists.
You should know that the heavenly Father, as a living ground, with all that
lives in Him, is actively turned towards His Son, as to His own Eternal
Wisdom. And that same Wisdom, with all that lives in It, is actively turned
back towards the Father, that is, towards that very ground from which It
comes forth. And in this meeting, there comes forth the third Person,
between the Father and the Son; that is the Holy Ghost, Their mutual Love,
who is one with them Both in the same nature. And He enfolds and drenches
through both in action and fruition the Father and the Son, and all that
lives in Both, with such great riches and such joy that as to this all
creatures must eternally be silent; for the incomprehensible wonder of this
love, eternally transcends the understanding of all creatures. But where
this wonder is understood and tasted without amazement, [76] there the
spirit dwells above itself, and is one with the Spirit of God; and tastes
and sees without measure, even as God, the riches which are the spirit
itself in the unity of the living ground, where it possesses itself
according to the way of its uncreated essence.
Now this rapturous meeting is incessantly and actively renewed in us,
according to the way of God; for the Father gives Himself in the Son, and
the Son gives Himself in the Father, in an eternal content and a loving
embrace; and this renews itself every moment within the bonds of love. For
like as the Father incessantly beholds all things in the birth of His Son,
so all things are loved anew by the Father and the Son in the outpouring of
the Holy Ghost. And this is the active meeting of the Father and of the Son,
in which we are lovingly embraced by the Holy Ghost in eternal love.
Now this active meeting and this loving embrace are in their ground fruitive
and wayless; for the abysmal Waylessness of God is so dark and so
unconditioned that it swallows up in itself every Divine way and activity,
and all the attributes of the Persons, within the rich compass of the
essential Unity, and it brings about a Divine fruition in the abyss of the
Ineffable. And here there is a death in fruition, and a melting and dying
into the Essential Nudity, where all the Divine names, and all conditions,
and all the living images which are reflected in the mirror of Divine Truth,
lapse in the Onefold and Ineffable, in waylessness and without reason. For
in this unfathomable abyss of the Simplicity, all things are wrapped in
fruitive bliss; and the abyss itself may not be comprehended, unless by the
Essential Unity. To this the Persons, and all that lives in God, must give
place; for here there is nought else but an eternal rest in the fruitive
embrace of an outpouring Love. And this is that wayless being which all
interior spirits have chosen above all other things. This is the dark
silence in which all lovers lose themselves. But if we would prepare
ourselves for it by means of the virtues, we should strip ourselves of all
but our very bodies, and should flee forth into the wild Sea, whence no
created thing can draw us back again. [77]
May we possess in fruition the essential Unity, and clearly behold unity in
the Trinity; this may Divine Love, which turns no beggar away, bestow upon
us. Amen.
HERE ENDS THE BOOK OF THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE
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[76] Cf. The Twelve Béguines, cap. 8— “That which is wayless is above
reason, not without it, And it perceives all things without wonder. Wonder
is far beneath it, And the life of contemplation is without wonder.”
[77] The last phrases of this passage are written in the irregular rhymed
verse which Ruysbroeck so often interpolated in his prose writings. It has
been found impossible to give a sufficiently close English rendering of
this. I therefore give the original Flemish as an example of his poetic
style— “En dit is in dat wiselose wesen dat age ynnighe gheeste boven alle
dinc hebben vercoren, Dit is die donkere stille daer alle minnende in sijn
verloren: Maer moche wi ons aldus in doghenden ghereden, Wi souden ons
schiere van den live ontcleden, En souden vlieten in wilde zeebaren:
Nemmermeer en mochte ons creature verhalen.”
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THE SPARKLING STONE
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PROLOGUE
The man who would live in the most perfect state of Holy Church must be a
good and zealous man; an inward and ghostly man; an uplifted and God-seeing
man; and an outflowing man to all in common. Whenever these four things are
together in a man, then his state is perfect; and through the increase of
grace he shall continually grow and progress in all virtues, and in the
knowledge of truth, before God and before all men.
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CHAPTER I
THROUGH THREE THINGS A MAN BECOMES GOOD
Hear now three things which constitute a good man. The first, which a good
man must have, is a clean conscience without reproach of mortal sin. And
therefore whosoever wishes to become a good man must examine and prove
himself with due discernment, from that time onward when he could first have
committed sin. And from all these sins he must purge himself, according to
the precept and the custom of Holy Church.
The second thing which pertains to a good man is that he must in all things
be obedient to God, and to Holy Church, and to his own proper convictions.
And to each of these three he must be equally obedient: so shall he live
without care and doubt, and shall ever abide without inward reproach in all
his deeds.
The third thing which behoves every good man is that in all his deeds he
should have in mind, above all else, the glory of God. And if it happens
that by reason of his business or the multiplicity of his works, he has not
always God before his eyes, yet at least there should be established in him
the intention and desire to live according to the dearest will of God.
Behold, these three things, when they are possessed in this way, make a man
good. And whosoever lacks any one of these three is neither good nor in the
grace of God; but whenever a man resolves in his heart to fulfil these three
points, how wicked soever he may have been before, in that very instant he
becomes good, and is susceptible of God, and filled with the grace of God.
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CHAPTER II
THROUGH THREE THINGS A MAN BECOMES INWARD
If, further, this good man would become an inward and ghostly man, he needs
must have three further things. The first is a heart unencumbered with
images; the second is spiritual freedom in his desires, the third is the
feeling of inward union with God. [78]
Now let every one who thinks himself to be ghostly observe himself. He who
would have a heart void of images may not possess anything with affection,
nor may he cling to any one, or have intercourse with him with attachment of
the will; for all intercourse and all affection which do not aim purely at
the honour of God bring images into a man’s heart, since they are born, not
of God, but of the flesh. And so if a man would become spiritual, he must
forsake all fleshly lusts and loves and must cleave with longing and love to
God alone, and thus possess Him. And through this, all imaginations and all
inordinate love towards creatures are cast out. And this loving possession
of God makes a man inwardly free from ungodly images; for God is a Spirit,
of Whom no one can make to himself a true image. Certainly in this exercise
a man should lay hold of good images to help him; such as the Passion of our
Lord and all those things that may stir him to greater devotion. But in the
possession of God, the man must sink down to that imageless Nudity which is
God; and this is the first condition, and the foundation, of a ghostly life.
The second condition is inward freedom. Through this, the man should be able
to raise himself towards God in all inward exercises, free from images and
encumbrances; that is, in thanksgiving and praise, in worship, in devout
prayer and fervent love, and in all those things that may be done by longing
and love with the help of the grace of God and through inward zeal in all
ghostly exercises.
Through this inward exercise, he reaches the third state; which is that he
feels a ghostly union with God. Whosoever then has, in his inward exercise,
an imageless and free ascent unto his God, and means nought else but the
glory of God, must taste of the goodness of God; and he must feel from
within a true union with God. And in this union, the inward and spiritual
life is made perfect; for in this union, the desirous power is perpetually
enticed anew and stirred to new inward activity. And by each act, the spirit
rises upwards to a new union. And so activity and union perpetually renew
themselves; and this perpetual renewal in activity and in union is a ghostly
life. And so you are now able to see how a man becomes good through the
moral virtues and an upright intention; and how he may become ghostly
through the inward virtues and union with God. But without these said
points, he can neither be good nor ghostly.
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[78] These are the mystical forms of the Evangelical Counsels of Poverty,
Chastity, and Obedience.
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CHAPTER III
THROUGH THREE THINGS A MAN BECOMES GOD-SEEING
Further, you must know that if this ghostly man would now become a
God-seeing man, he needs must have three other things. The first is the
feeling that the foundation of his being is abysmal, and he should possess
it in this manner; the second is that his inward exercise should be wayless;
the third is that his indwelling should be a divine fruition.
Now understand, you who would live in the spirit, for I am speaking to no
one else. The union with God which a spiritual man feels, when the union is
revealed to the spirit as being abysmal—that is, measureless depth,
measureless height, measureless length and measureless breadth—in this
manifestation the spirit perceives that through love it has plunged itself
into the depth and has ascended into the height and escaped into the length;
and it feels itself to be wandering in the breadth, and to dwell in a
knowledge which is ignorance. And through this intimate feeling of union, it
feels itself to be melting into the Unity; and, through dying to all things,
into the life of God. And there it feels itself to be one life with God. And
this is the foundation, and the first point, of the God-seeing life.
And from this there arises the second point, which is an exercise above
reason and without condition: for the Divine Unity, of which every
God-seeing spirit has entered into possession in love, eternally draws and
invites the Divine Persons and all loving spirits into its self. And this
inward drawing is felt by each lover, more or less, according to the measure
of his love and the manner of his exercise. And whosoever yields himself to
this indrawing, and keeps himself therein, cannot fall into mortal sin. But
the God-seeing man who has forsaken self and all things, and does not feel
himself drawn away because he no longer possesses anything as his own, but
stands empty of all, he can always enter, naked and unencumbered with
images, into the inmost part of his spirit. There he finds revealed an
Eternal Light, and in this light, he feels the eternal demand of the Divine
Unity; and he feels himself to be an eternal fire of love, which craves
above all else to be one with God. The more he yields to this indrawing or
demand, the more he feels it. And the more he feels it, the more he craves
to be one with God; for it urges him to pay the debt which is demanded of
him by God. This eternal demand of the Divine Unity kindles within the
spirit an eternal fire of love; and though the spirit incessantly pays the
debt, an eternal burning continues within it. For, in the transformation
within the Unity, all spirits fail in their own activity, and feel nothing
else but a burning up of themselves in the simple Unity of God. This simple
Unity of God none can feel or possess save he who maintains himself in the
immeasurable radiance, and in the love which is above reason and wayless. In
this transcendent state the spirit feels in itself the eternal fire of love;
and in this fire of love it finds neither beginning nor end, and it feels
itself one with this fire of love. The spirit for ever continues to burn in
itself, for its love is eternal; and it feels itself ever more and more to
be burnt up in love, for it is drawn and transformed into the Unity of God,
where the spirit burns in love. If it observes itself, it finds a
distinction and an otherness between itself and God; but where it is burnt
up it is undifferentiated and without distinction, and therefore it feels
nothing but unity; for the flame of the Love of God consumes and devours all
that it can enfold in its Self.
And thus you may see that the indrawing Unity of God is nought else than the
fathomless Love, which lovingly draws inward, in eternal fruition, the
Father and the Son and all that lives in Them. And in this Love we shall
burn and be burnt up without end, throughout eternity; for herein lies the
blessedness of all spirits. And therefore we must all found our lives upon a
fathomless abyss; that we may eternally plunge into Love, and sink down in
the fathomless Depth. And with that same Love, we shall ascend, and
transcend ourselves, in the incomprehensible Height. And in that Love which
is wayless, we shall wander and stray, and it shall lead us and lose us in
the immeasurable Breadth of the Love of God. And herein we shall flee forth
and flee out of ourselves, into the unknown raptures of the Goodness and
Riches of God. And therein we shall melt and be melted away, and shall
eternally wander and sojourn within the Glory of God. Behold! by each of
these images, I show forth to God-seeing men their being and their exercise,
but none else can understand them. For the contemplative life cannot be
taught. But where the Eternal Truth reveals Itself within the spirit all
that is needful is taught and learnt.
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CHAPTER IV
OF THE SPARKLING STONE, AND OF THE NEW NAME WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE
SECRETS OF GOD
And therefore the Spirit of our Lord speaks thus in the Book of the Secrets
of God, which St John wrote down: to him that overcometh, He says, that is,
to him who overcometh and conquereth himself and all else, will I give to
eat of the hidden manna, that is, an inward and hidden savour and celestial
joy; and will give him a sparkling stone, and in the stone a new name
written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. This stone is
called a pebble, [79] for it is so small that it does not hurt when one
treads on it. This stone is shining white and red like a flame of fire; and
it is small and round, and smooth all over, and very light. By this
sparkling stone we mean our Lord Christ Jesus, for He is, according to His
Godhead, a shining forth of the Eternal Light, and an irradiation of the
glory of God, and a flawless mirror in which all things live. Now to him who
overcomes and transcends all things, this sparkling stone is given; and with
it he receives light and truth and life. This stone is also like to a fiery
flame, for the fiery love of the Eternal Word has filled the whole world
with love and wills that all loving spirits be burned up to nothingness in
love. This stone is also so small that a man hardly feels it, even though he
treads it underfoot. And that is why it is called calculus, that is,
“treadling.” And this is made clear to us by St Paul, where he says that the
Son of God emptied Himself, and humbled Himself, and took upon Him the form
of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
And He Himself spoke through the mouth of the Prophet, saying: I am a worm,
and no man: a reproach of men and despised of the people. And He made
Himself so small in time that the Jews trod Him under their feet. But they
felt Him not; for, had they recognized the Son of God, they had not dared to
crucify Him. He is still little and despised in all men’s hearts that do not
love Him well. This noble stone of which I speak is wholly round and smooth
and even all over. That the stone is round teaches us that the Divine Truth
has neither beginning nor end; that it is smooth and even all over teaches
us that the Divine Truth shall weigh all things evenly, and shall give to
each according to his merits; and that which he gives shall be with each
throughout eternity. The last property of this stone of which I will speak
is, that it is particularly light; for the Eternal Word of the Father has no
weight, nevertheless It bears heaven and earth by Its strength. And It is
equally near to all things; yet none can attain It, for It is set on high
and goes before all creatures, and reveals Itself where It wills and when It
wills; and, in Its lightness, our heavy human nature has climbed above all
the heavens, and sits crowned at the right hand of the Father.
Behold, this is the sparkling stone which is given to the God-seeing man,
and in this stone a new name is written, which no man knoweth saving he that
receiveth it. You should know that all spirits in their return towards God
receive names; each one in particular, according to the nobleness of its
service and the loftiness of its love. For only the first name of innocence,
which we receive at baptism, is adorned with the merits of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And when we have lost this name of innocence through sin, if we are
willing still to follow God;especially in three works which He wishes to
work in us—we are baptized once more in the Holy Ghost. And thereby we
receive a new name which shall remain with us throughout eternity.
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[79] Ruysbroeck wrote, or dictated, terdelinc, literally “tread-ling,”
probably imagining some relation between calculus (pebble), from calx
(stone), and calcare (to tread), from calx (knuckle, heel).
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CHAPTER V
OF THE WORKS WHICH GOD WORKS IN ALL IN COMMON AND OF FIVE KINDS OF SINNERS
Hear now what those three works are, which our Lord works in all men if they
will submit themselves thereto. The first work which God works in all men in
common consists in His calling and inviting them all, without exception, to
union with Himself. And as long as a sinner does not follow this call, he
must lack all the other gifts which would follow thereafter.
Now I have observed that all sinners may be divided into five kinds. To the
first kind belong all those who are careless of good works, who through
bodily ease and the lust of the senses prefer to live in worldly employments
and in multiplicity of heart. All such are unfit to receive the grace of
God, and even if they had received it, they would not be able to keep it.
To the second kind belong those who have willingly and wittingly fallen into
mortal sin, yet also do good works, and dwell in the fear and awe of the
Lord, and love the just, and desire their prayers, and put their trust
therein. So long, however, as turning from God and love of sin vanquish and
repulse love of God and turning to God, so long these remain unworthy of the
grace of God.
The third kind of sinners consists in all unbelievers, and those who err in
faith. What good works soever they do, or what lives soever they lead,
without the true faith they cannot please God; for true faith is the
foundation of all holiness and all virtues.
To the fourth kind belong those who abide in mortal sin without fear and
without shame, who care not for God and His gifts, and neglect all virtues.
They hold all ghostly life to be hypocrisy and deceit; and they hardly
listen to all that one may say to them of God or of the virtues, for they
have established themselves as though there were no God, nor heaven, nor
hell, and therefore they desire to know of nothing but that which they now
perceive and have before them. Behold, all such are rejected and despised by
God, for they sin against the Holy Ghost. Yet they may be converted; but
this happens with difficulty and seldom.
The fifth kind of sinners are those hypocrites who do outward good works,
not for the glory of God and their own salvation, but to acquire a name for
holiness or for the sake of some fleeting thing. Though they may appear holy
and good from without, within they are false and turned away from God, and
they lack the grace of God and every virtue.
See, I have shown to you five kinds of sinners, who have all been inwardly
called to union with God. But so long as a sinner remains in the service of
sin, so long he remains deaf and blind and unable to taste, or to feel, all
the good that God wishes to work in him. But whenever a sinner enters into
himself, and considers himself, if he be displeased by his sinful life, then
he draws near to God. But if he would be obedient to the call and the words
of God, he must of his own free will resolve to leave sin and to do penance.
And so he becomes one aim and one will with God, and receives the grace of
God.
And therefore we should all conceive of God in this way: First of all that,
of His free goodness, He calls and invites all men, without distinction, to
union with Himself; both the good and the wicked, without exception.
Secondly, we should thus comprehend the goodness of God; how He through
grace flows forth towards all men who are obedient to the call of God.
Thirdly, we should find and understand clearly in ourselves that we can
become one life and one spirit with God, when we renounce ourselves in every
way, and follow the grace of God to the height whereto it would guide us.
For the grace of God works according to order in every man, after the
measure and the way in which he is able to receive it. And thereby, through
the universal working of the grace of God, every sinner, if he desires it,
receives the discernment and strength which are needful, that he may leave
sin and turn towards virtue. And, through that hidden cooperation of the
grace of God, every good man can overcome all sins, and can resist all
temptations, and can fulfil all virtues, and can persevere in the highest
perfection, if he be in all things submissive to the grace of God. For all
that we are, and all that we have received, from without and from within,
these are all the free gifts of God; for which we must thank and praise Him,
and with which we must serve Him, if we are to please Him. But there are
many gifts of God which are for the good an aid to, and a source of, virtue;
but for the wicked an aid to, and an occasion of, sin: such are health,
beauty, wisdom riches, and worldly dignity. These are the lowest and least
precious gifts of God, which God gives for the benefit of all, to His
friends and to His enemies, to the good and to the wicked. And with these
the good serve God and His friends; but the wicked, their own flesh, and the
devil, and the world.
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CHAPTER VI
OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE HIRELINGS AND THE FAITHFUL SERVANTS OF GOD
Now you may mark this: that some men receive the gifts of God as hirelings,
but others as faithful servants of God; and these differ one from another in
all inward works, that is, in love and intention, in feeling and in every
exercise of the inward life.
Now understand this well: all those who love themselves so inordinately that
they will not serve God, save for their own profit and because of their own
reward, these separate themselves from God, and dwell in bondage and in
their own selfhood; for they seek, and aim at, their own, in all that they
do. And therefore, with all their prayers and with all their good works,
they seek after temporal things, or may be strive after eternal things for
their own benefit and for their own profit. These men are bent upon
themselves in an inordinate way; and that is why they ever abide alone with
themselves, for they lack the true love which would unite them with God and
with all His beloved. And although these men seem to keep within the law and
the commandments of God and of Holy Church, they do not keep within the law
of love; for all that they do, they do, not out of love, but from sheer
necessity, lest they shall be damned. And, because they are inwardly
unfaithful, they dare not trust in God; but their whole inward life is doubt
and fear, travail and misery. For they see on the right hand eternal life,
and this they are afraid of losing; and they see on the left hand the
eternal pains of hell, and these they are afraid of gaining. But all their
prayers, all their labour and all the good works, whatsoever they do, to
cast out this fear, help them not; for the more inordinately they love
themselves, the more they fear hell. And from this you may learn that their
fear of hell springs from self-love, which seeks its own.
Now the Prophet, and also the Preacher, say: The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom; but by this is meant that fear which is exercised upon
the right side, where one considers the loss of eternal blessedness, for
this fear arises from the natural tendency which every man has in himself to
be blessed, that is, to see God. And therefore, even though a man may be
faithless to God, yet whenever he truly observes himself from within, he
feels himself to be leaning out from himself towards that blessedness which
is God. And this blessedness he fears to lose; for he loves himself better
than God, and he loves blessedness wholly for his own sake. And therefore he
dare not trust in God. And yet this is that Fear of the Lord which is the
beginning of wisdom and is a law to the unfaithful servants of God: for it
compels a man to leave sin, and to strive after virtue, and to do good
deeds, and these things prepare a man from without to receive the grace of
God and become a faithful servant.
But from that very hour in which, with God’s help, he can overcome his
selfhood—that is to say when he is so detached from himself that he is able
to leave in the keeping of God everything of which he has need—behold,
through doing this he is so well pleasing to God that God bestows upon him
His grace. And, through grace, he feels true love: and love casts out doubt
and fear, and fills the man with hope and trust, and thus he becomes a
faithful servant, and means and loves God in all that he does. Behold, this
is the difference between the faithful servant and the hireling.
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CHAPTER VII
OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FAITHFUL SERVANTS AND THE SECRET FRIENDS OF GOD
We must now observe the great difference which there is between the faithful
servants and the inward friends of God. For through grace and the help of
God, the faithful servants have chosen to keep the commandments of God, that
is, to be obedient to God and Holy Church in all virtues and goodly
behaviour: and this is called the outward or active life. But the inward
friends of God choose to follow, besides the commandments, the quickening
counsels of God, and this is a loving and inward cleaving to God for the
sake of His eternal glory, with a willing abandonment of all that one may
possess outside God with lust and love. All such friends God calls and
invites inwards, and He teaches them the distinctions of inward exercises
and many a hidden way of ghostly life. But He sends His servants outwards,
that they may be faithful to Him and to His House in every service and in
every kind of outward good works.
Behold, thus God gives His grace and His help to each man according to his
fitness; that is, according to the way in which he is in tune with God,
whether in outward good works or in the inward practice of love. But none
can do and feel the inward exercises unless he be wholly turned inward to
God. For as long as a man is divided of heart, so long he looks outwards,
and is unstable of mind, and is easily swayed by joy and grief in temporal
things, for these are still alive within him. And though he may live
according to the commandments of God, inwardly he abides in darkness, and
knows not what inward exercises may be, nor how these should be practised.
But, since he knows and feels that he has God in mind, and in all his works
desires to fulfil His dearest will, with this he may be content; for then he
knows himself to be free from hypocrisy in his intention, and faithful in
his service. And by these two things he contents himself; and it seems to
him that outward good works done with a pure intention are more holy and
more profitable than any inward exercise whatever, for by the help of God,
he has chosen an outward active way of virtue. And therefore he had rather
exercise himself in the diversity of outward works than serve with inward
love that same One for Whom he works. And that is the cause why his mind is
more filled with the works which he does, than with God, for Whom he does
them. And through this tendency to images in his works, he remains an
outward man, and is not able to follow the counsels of God; for his exercise
is more outward than inward, more of the senses than of the spirit. Though
he is indeed a faithful servant of God in outward works, yet that which the
secret friends of God experience remains hidden from, and unknown to him.
And this is why certain gross and outward men always condemn and blame the
inward and contemplative men, because they have in mind that these are idle.
And this was also the reason why Martha complained to our Lord of her sister
Mary, because she did not help her in serving; for she believed that she was
doing much service and much usefulness, and that her sister was sitting idle
and doing nothing. But our Lord gave His judgment and decided between them:
He did not blame Martha for her diligence, for her service was good and
useful; but He blamed her for her care, and because she was troubled and
cast down by a multitude of outward things. And He praised Mary for her
inward exercise, and said that One Thing was needful, and that she had
chosen the better part, which should not be taken away from her.
That One Thing which is needful for all men is Divine love. The better part
is an inward life, with loving adherence to God. This Mary Magdalen had
chosen, and this is chosen by the secret friends of God. But Martha chose an
outward, unenclosed, and active life; and that is the other part, in which
one may serve God, but which is neither so perfect nor so good. And this
part is chosen out of love by the faithful servants of God.
But there are found some foolish men who would be so inward that they would
neither act nor serve, even in those things of which their neighbour has
need. Behold, these are neither secret friends nor faithful servants of God;
but they are altogether false and deceived. For no man can follow the
counsels of God who will not keep His commandments. And therefore all secret
friends of God are also at the same time faithful servants, wherever this is
needful; but all the faithful servants are not secret friends, for the
exercise which belongs thereto is unknown to them.
This is the difference between the faithful servants and the secret friends
of God.
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CHAPTER VIII
OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SECRET FRIENDS AND THE HIDDEN SONS OF GOD
But further we find a more subtle and inward difference, between the secret
friends and the hidden sons of God; and yet both these alike by their inward
exercise maintain themselves in the Presence of God. But the friends possess
their inwardness as an attribute, for they choose the loving adherence to
God as best and highest of all that they ever can and will reach: and that
is why they cannot with themselves and their own activity penetrate to the
imageless Nudity. For they have, as images and intermediaries between God
and themselves, their own being and their own activity. And though in their
loving adherence they feel united with God, yet, in this union, they always
feel a difference and an otherness between God and themselves. For the
simple passing into the Bare and Wayless, they do not know and love: and
therefore their highest inward life ever remains in Reason and in Ways. And
though they have clear understanding and discernment of all virtues that may
be conceived, the simple staring with open heart into the Divine Brightness
remains unknown of them. And though they feel themselves uplifted to God in
a mighty fire of love, yet they keep something of their own selfhood, and
are not consumed and burnt to nothingness in the unity of love. And though
they may desire to live for ever more in the service of God and to please
Him eternally, they will not die in God to all the selfhood of their spirit,
and receive from Him a God-formed life. [80] And even though they esteem
little and count as nothing all consolation and all rest which may come from
without, yet they greatly value the gifts of God, and also their own inward
works and the solace and sweetness which they feel within and thus they rest
upon the way, and do not so wholly die to themselves, as to be able to
attain the highest beatitude in bare and wayless love. And even if they
could practise and apprehend with clear discernment the perfection of loving
adherence to God, and all the inward and upward going ways by which one may
pass into the Presence of God; yet the wayless passing, and the glorious
wandering, in the Superessential Love, wherein neither end, nor beginning,
nor way, nor manner, can ever be found, would remain hidden from, and
unknown of them.
And so there is a great difference between the secret friends and the hidden
sons of God. For the friends feel nought else but a loving and living ascent
to God in some wise, but, above this, the sons experience a simple and
death-like passing which is in no wise.
The inward life of the friends of our Lord is an upward-striving exercise of
love, wherein they desire to remain for ever with their own selfhood; but
how one possesses God through bare love above every exercise, in freedom
from one’s self, this they do not feel. Hence they are always striving
upwards towards God in true faith, and await God and eternal blessedness
with sincere hope, and are fastened and anchored to God through perfect
charity. And therefore good things have befallen them, for they please God,
and God is complaisant unto them: yet for all this, they are not assured of
eternal life, for they have not entirely died to themselves and to all
selfhood. But all those who abide and endure in their exercise and in that
turning to God which they have chosen above all else, these God has chosen
in eternity, and their names together with their works are written from
eternity in the living book of the Providence of God. But those who choose
other things, and turn their inward faces away from God toward sin, and
endure therein (even though their names were written and known of God
because of the temporal righteousness which they had practised before),
their names shall be blotted out and erased from the Book of Life because
they did not persevere unto death, and they shall never more be able to
taste of God, nor of any fruit which springs from virtue. And therefore we
must needs observe ourselves with diligence, and adorn our turning towards
God, from within with inward love, and from without with good works: thus we
can await in hope and joy the judgment of God and the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ. But could we renounce ourselves, and all selfhood in our
works, we should, with our bare and imageless spirit, transcend all things:
and, without intermediary, should be led of the Spirit of God into the
Nudity. And then we should feel the certainty that we are indeed the sons of
God: for as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God,
says the Apostle St Paul.
Nevertheless, you should know that all good and faithful men are the sons of
God; for they are all born of the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God lives
in them. And He moves and stirs them—each according to his own capacity—to
virtues and good works, wherein they are well pleasing to God. But because
of the inequality of their adherence and their exercises, I call some the
faithful servants of God and others I call His secret friends, and others
again His hidden sons: nevertheless, they are all servants, friends, and
sons, for they all serve and love and mean one God, and they live and work
only by the free Spirit of God. And God permits and allows that His friends
do and leave undone all those things which are not contrary to His
commandments; and for those who are bound by the counsels of God, then this
bond also is a commandment. And so no one is disobedient or contrary to God
save he who does not keep His commandments; but all those things which God
commands and forbids in Scripture or by Holy Church, or in our conscience,
all these things we must do and leave undone, or else be disobedient to God,
and lose His grace. But if we fall into venial sins, this is suffered both
by God and by our reason, for we cannot wholly guard against them. And
therefore such failings do not make us disobedient, for they do not drive
out the grace of God nor our inward peace: nevertheless, we should always
lament such lapses, how small soever they may be, and guard against them
with all our might.
And by these words I have explained to you what I said at the beginning:
namely, that every man must needs be obedient in all things to God and to
Holy Church and to his own conscience; for I do not wish that any should be
unjustly offended by my words. And herewith I leave it even as I have said
it.
_________________________________________________________________
[80] “Een eenformich leven met Gode draghen.” Here Ruysbroeck accepts in the
most extreme form possible to a Catholic Christian the dangerous doctrine of
the “deification” of the soul; its total transformation in God. We must,
however, read such passages in the light thrown upon them by his distinct
declarations in other places concerning the “invincible otherness” of God
and the human spirit. Cf. infra cap. 10, where it is shown that this
transmutation within the Divine Essence cannot and does not involve
identity. Compare The Book of Truth, cap. 11. So, too, in The Twelve
Béguines, cap. 14: “The spirit of man doth not become God, but is
God-formed, and knows itself to be breadth and length and height and
depth.”
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CHAPTER IX
HOW WE MAY BECOME HIDDEN SONS OF GOD, AND ATTAIN TO THE GOD-SEEING LIFE
But I still longed to know how we may become hidden sons of God, and may
attain to the God-seeing life. And as to this I have apprehended the
following. As it has been said before, we must always live and be watchful
in all virtues, and beyond all virtues must forsake this life and die in
God; for we must die to sin and be born of God into a life of virtue, and we
must renounce ourselves and die in God into an eternal life. And as to this
ensues the following instruction:
If we are born of the Spirit of God, we are the sons of grace; and so our
whole life is adorned with virtues. Thereby we overcome all that is contrary
to God; for St John says, Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. In
this birth all good men are sons of God. And the Spirit of God kindles and
stirs each one of them in particular to those virtues and to those good
works for which he is in readiness and of which he is capable. And so they
please God all in common, and each in particular, according to the measure
of his love and the nobleness of his exercise; nevertheless, they do not
feel established nor possessed of God, nor assured of eternal life, for they
may still turn away and fall into sin. And that is why I call them rather
servants and friends, than sons. But when we transcend ourselves, and become
in our ascent towards God, so simple that the naked love in the height can
lay hold of us, where love enfolds love, above every exercise of virtue—that
is, in our Origin, of Which we are spiritually born—then we cease, and we
and all our selfhood die in God. And in this death we become hidden sons of
God, and find a new life within us: and that is eternal life And of these
sons, St Paul says: You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
[81]
Now understand, the explanation of this is as follows. In our approach to
God, we must carry with us ourselves and all our works, as a perpetual
sacrifice to God; and in the Presence of God, we must forsake ourselves and
all our works, and, dying in love, go forth from all creatureliness into the
superessential richness of God: there we shall possess God in an eternal
death to ourselves. And that is why the Spirit of God says in the book of
the Divine Secrets: Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. Justly He
calls them the blessed dead, for they remain eternally dead and lost to
themselves in the fruitive Unity of God. And they die in love ever anew,
through the indrawing transformation of that same Unity. Further, the Spirit
of God says: They may rest from their labours, and their works do follow
them. In the ordinary state of grace, when we are born of God into a ghostly
and virtuous life, we carry our works before us, as an offering to God; but
in the wayless state, where we die back into God in an eternal and blessed
life, there our good works follow us, for they are one life with us. When we
go towards God by means of the virtues, God dwells in us; but when we go out
from ourselves and from all else, then we dwell in God. So soon as we have
faith, hope and charity, we have received God, and He dwells in us with His
grace, and He sends us out as His faithful servants, to keep His
commandments. And He calls us in again as His secret friends, so soon as we
are willing to follow His counsels; and He names us openly as His sons so
soon as we live in opposition to the world. But if above all things we would
taste God, and feel eternal life in ourselves, we must go forth into God
with our feeling, above reason; and there we must abide, onefold, empty of
ourselves, and free from images, lifted up by love into the simple bareness
of our intelligence. For when we go out in love beyond and above all things,
and die to all observation in ignorance and in darkness, then we are wrought
and transformed through the Eternal Word, Who is the Image of the Father. In
this idleness of our spirit, we receive the Incomprehensible Light, which
enwraps us and penetrates us, as the air is penetrated by the light of the
sun. And this Light is nothing else than a fathomless staring and seeing.
What we are, that we behold; and what we behold, that we are: for our
thought, our life, and our being are uplifted in simplicity, and made one
with the Truth which is God. And therefore in this simple staring we are one
life and one spirit with God: and this I call a contemplative life. [82] As
soon as we cleave to God through love, we practise the better part; but when
we gaze thus into our superessence, we possess God utterly. With this
contemplation, there is bound up an exercise which is wayless, that is to
say, a noughting of life; for, where we go forth out of ourselves into
darkness and the abysmal Waylessness, there shines perpetually the simple
ray of the Splendour of God, in which we are grounded, and which draws us
out of ourselves into the superessence, and into the immersion of love. And
with this sinking into love there is always bound up a practice of love
which is wayless; for love cannot be lazy, but would search through and
through and taste through and through the fathomless richness which lives in
the ground of her being, and this is a hunger which cannot be appeased. But
a perpetual striving after the unattainable—this is swimming against the
stream. One can neither leave it nor grasp it, neither do without it nor
attain it, neither be silent on it nor speak of it, for it is above reason
and understanding, and it transcends all creatures; and therefore we can
never reach nor overtake it. But we should abide within ourselves: there we
feel that the Spirit of God is driving us and enkindling us in this
restlessness of love. And we should abide above ourselves. And then we feel
that the Spirit of God is drawing us out of ourselves and burning us to
nothingness in His Selfhood; that is, in the Superessential Love with which
we are one, and which we possess more deeply and more widely than all else.
This possession is a simple and abysmal tasting of all good and of eternal
life; and in this tasting we are swallowed up above reason and without
reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead, which is never moved. That this is
true we can only know by our own feeling, and in no other way. For how this
is, or where, or what, neither reason nor practice can come to know: and
therefore our ensuing exercise always remains wayless, that is, without
manner. For that abysmal Good which we taste and possess, we can neither
grasp nor understand; neither can we enter into it by ourselves or by means
of our exercises. And so we are poor in ourselves, but rich in God; hungry
and thirsty in ourselves, drunken and fulfilled in God; busy in ourselves,
idle in God. And thus we shall remain throughout eternity. But without the
exercise of love, we can never possess God; and whosoever thinks or feels
otherwise is deceived. And thus we live wholly in God, where we possess our
blessedness; and we live wholly in ourselves, where we exercise ourselves in
love towards God. And though we live wholly in God and wholly in ourselves,
yet it is but one life; but it is twofold and opposite according to our
feeling, for poor and rich, hungry and satisfied, busy and idle, these
things are wholly contrary to one another. Yet with this our highest honour
is bound up, now and in eternity: for we cannot wholly become God and lose
our created being, this is impossible. Did we, however, remain wholly in
ourselves, sundered from God, we should be miserable and unblest. And
therefore we should feel ourselves living wholly in God and wholly in
ourselves; and between these two feelings we should find nothing else but
the grace of God and the exercise of our love. For out of our highest
feeling, the brightness of God shines into us, which teaches us truth, and
moves us towards every virtue and in eternal love towards God. If we follow
this brightness without pause, back into that Source from whence it comes
forth, there we feel nothing but a quenching of our spirit and an
irretrievable down-sinking into simple and fathomless love. Could we
continue to dwell there with our simple gaze, we should always so feel it;
for our immersion and transformation in God continues without ceasing in
eternity, if we have gone forth from ourselves, and God is ours in the
immersion of love. For if we possess God in the immersion of love—that is,
if we are lost to ourselves—God is our own and we are His own: and we sink
ourselves eternally and irretrievably in our own possession, which is God.
This immersion is essential, and is closely bound up with the state of love:
and so it continues whether we sleep or whether we wake, whether we know it
or whether we know it not. And so it does not earn for us any new degree of
reward; but it maintains us in the possession of God and of all that good
which we have received. And this down-sinking is like a river, which without
pause or turning back ever pours into the sea; since this is its proper
resting-place. So likewise when we possess God alone, the down-sinking of
our being, with the love that belongs to it flows forth, without return,
into a fathomless experience which we possess, and which is our proper
resting-place. Were we always simple, and could we always contemplate with
the same recollection, we should always have the same experience. Now this
immersion is above all virtues, and above every exercise of love; for it is
nothing else than an eternal going out from ourselves, with a clear looking
forward, into an otherness or difference towards which, outside ourselves,
we tend as towards our blessedness. For we feel an eternal yearning toward
something other than what we are ourselves. And this is the most inward and
hidden distinction which we can feel between God and ourselves, and beyond
it there is no difference any more. But our reason abides here with open
eyes in the darkness, that is, in an abysmal ignorance; and in this
darkness, the abysmal splendour remains covered and hidden from us, for its
overwhelming unfathomableness blinds our reason. But it enwraps us in
simplicity, and transforms us through its selfhood: and thus we are brought
forth by God, out of our selfhood, into the immersion of love, in which we
possess blessedness, and are one with God.
When we are thus made one with God, there abides within us a quickening
knowledge and an active love; for without our own knowledge, we cannot
possess God; and without the practice of love, we cannot be united with God,
nor remain one with Him. For if we could be blessed without our knowledge,
then a stone, which has no knowledge, could also be blessed. Were I lord
over all the world and knew it not, how would it profit me? And therefore we
shall ever know and feel that we taste and possess; and this is testified by
Christ Himself, where He speaks thus of us to His Father: This, he says, is
life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, Whom Thou hast sent. And by this you may understand that our eternal
life consists in knowledge with discernment.
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[81] This “death in God” or total self-loss in the Divine Abyss was one of
the favourite doctrines of the Friends of God, with whom Ruysbroeck appears
to have been closely connected. Thus Tauler says— “Everything depends on
this: a fathomless sinking into a fathomless nothingness. . . . The Heavenly
Father says, ‘Thou shalt call Me Father, and shalt never cease to enter in;
entering ever further, ever nearer, so as to sink ever deeper into an
unknown and unnamed Abyss, and, above all ways, images and forms, above an
powers, to lose thyself, deny thyself, and even unform thyself.’ In this
lost state, nothing is seen but a ground which rests upon itself: everywhere
one being, one life. Thus, man may say, he becomes without knowledge,
without love, without feeling. But this does not come from our natural
qualities; but from the transformation of the created spirit by the Spirit
of God, in the fathomless self-immersion of the created spirit, and its
fathomless resignation.” (Sermon on St Matthew.)
[82] Compare St Augustine— “In this seeing and beholding of Truth, which is
the seventh and last stage of the soul (and not indeed a stage but a
habitation to which she attains by these stages), what shall I say of the
joys, of the fruition of the Supreme and True Good, of the perfect peace and
breath of Eternity. (De Quantitate Animae, cap. 33.)
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CHAPTER X
HOW WE, THOUGH ONE WITH GOD, MUST ETERNALLY REMAIN OTHER THAN GOD
Though I have said before that we are one with God and this is taught us by
Holy Writ, yet now I will say that we must eternally remain other than God,
and distinct from Him, and this too is taught us by Holy Writ. And we must
understand and feel both within us, if all is to be right with us.
And therefore I say further: that from the Face of God, or from our highest
feeling, a brightness shines upon the face of our inward being, which
teaches us the truth of love and of all virtues: and especially are we
taught in this brightness to feel God and ourselves in four ways. First, we
feel God in His grace; and when we apprehend this, we cannot remain idle.
For like as the sun, by its splendour and its heat, enlightens and gladdens
and makes fruitful the whole world, so God does to us through His grace: He
enlightens and gladdens and makes fruitful all men who desire to obey Him.
If, however, we would feel God within us, and have the fire of His love ever
more burning within us, we must, of our own free will, help to kindle it in
four ways: We must abide within ourselves, united with the fire through
inwardness. And we must go forth from ourselves towards all good men with
loyalty and brotherly love. And we must go beneath ourselves in penance,
betaking ourselves to all good works, and resisting our inordinate lusts.
And we must ascend above ourselves with the flame of this fire, through
devotion, and thanksgiving, and praise, and fervent prayer, and must ever
cleave to God with an upright intention and with sensible love. And thereby
God continues to dwell in us with His grace; for in these four ways is
comprehended every exercise which we can do with the reason, and in some
wise, but without this exercise no one can please God. And he who is most
perfect in this exercise, is nearest to God. And therefore it is needful for
all men; and above it none can rise save the contemplative men. And thus, in
this first way, we feel God within us through His grace, if we wish to
belong to Him.
Secondly: when we possess the God-seeing life, we feel ourselves to be
living in God; and from out of that life in which we feel God in ourselves,
there shines forth upon the face of our inward being a brightness which
enlightens our reason, and is an intermediary between ourselves and God. And
if we with our enlightened reason abide within ourselves in this brightness,
we feel that our created life incessantly immerses itself in its eternal
life. But when we follow the brightness above reason with a simple sight,
and with a willing leaning out of ourselves, toward our highest life, there
we experience the transformation of our whole selves in God; and thereby we
feel ourselves to be wholly enwrapped in God.
And, after this, there follows the third way of feeling; namely, that we
feel ourselves to be one with God; for, through the transformation in God,
we feel ourselves to be swallowed up in the fathomless abyss of our eternal
blessedness, wherein we can nevermore find any distinction between ourselves
and God. And this is our highest feeling, which we cannot experience in any
other way than in the immersion in love. And therefore, so soon as we are
uplifted and drawn into our highest feeling, all our powers stand idle in an
essential fruition; but our powers do not pass away into nothingness, for
then we should lose our created being. And as long as we stand idle, with an
inclined spirit, and with open eyes, but without reflection, so long we can
contemplate and have fruition. But, at the very moment in which we seek to
prove and to comprehend what it is that we feel, we fall back into reason,
and there we find a distinction and an otherness between ourselves and God,
and find God outside ourselves in incomprehensibility.
And hence the fourth way of distinction; which is, that we feel God and
ourselves. Hereby we now find ourselves standing in the Presence of God; and
the truth which we receive from the Face of God teaches us that God would be
wholly ours and that He wills us to be wholly His. And in that same moment
in which we feel that God would be wholly ours, there arises within us a
gaping and eager craving which is so hungry and so deep and so empty that,
even though God gave all that He could give, if he gave not Himself, we
should not be appeased. For, whilst we feel that He has given Himself and
yielded Himself to our untrammeled craving, that we may taste of Him in
every way that we can desire—and of this we learn the truth in His sight—yet
all that we taste, against all that we lack, is but like to a single drop of
water against the whole sea: and this makes our spirit burst forth in fury
and in the heat and the restlessness of love. For the more we taste, the
greater our craving and our hunger; for the one is the cause of the other.
And thus it comes about that we struggle in vain. For we feed upon His
Immensity, which we cannot devour, and we yearn after His Infinity, which we
cannot attain: and so we cannot enter into God nor can God enter into us,
for in the untamed fury of love we are not able to renounce ourselves. And
therefore the heat is so unmeasured that the exercise of love between
ourselves and God flashes to and fro like the lightning in the sky; and yet
we cannot be consumed in its ardour. And in this storm of love our activity
is above reason and wayless; for love longs for that which is impossible to
it, and reason teaches that love is in the right, but reason can neither
counsel love nor dissuade her. For as long as we inwardly perceive that God
would be ours, the goodness of God touches our eager craving: and therefrom
springs the wildness of love, for the touch which pours forth from God stirs
up this wildness, and demands our activity, that is, that we should love
eternal love. But the inward-drawing touch draws us out of ourselves, and
calls us to be melted and noughted in the Unity. And in this inward-drawing
touch, we feel that God wills us to be His; and therefore, we must renounce
ourselves and leave Him to work our blessedness. But where He touches us by
the outpouring touch, He leaves us to ourselves, and makes us free, and sets
us in His Presence, and teaches us to pray in the spirit and to ask in
freedom, and shows us His incomprehensible riches in such manifold ways as
we are able to grasp. For everything that we can conceive, wherein is
consolation and joy, this we find in Him without measure. And therefore,
when our feeling shows us that He with all these riches would be ours and
dwell in us for ever more, then all the powers of the soul open themselves,
and especially the desirous power; for all the rivers of the grace of God
pour forth, and the more we taste of them, the more we long to taste; and
the more we long to taste, the more deeply we press into contact with Him;
and the more deeply we press into contact with God, the more the flood of
His sweetness flows through us and over us; and the more we are thus
drenched and flooded, the better we feel and know that the sweetness of God
is incomprehensible and unfathomable. And therefore the prophet says: O
taste, and see that the Lord is sweet. But he does not say how sweet He is,
for God’s sweetness is without measure and therefore we can neither grasp it
nor swallow it. And this is also testified by the bride of God in the Song
of Songs, where she says: I sat down under his shadow, with great delight,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
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CHAPTER XI
OF THE GREAT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE SAINTS AND THE HIGHEST
BRIGHTNESS TO WHICH WE CAN ATTAIN IN THIS LIFE
There is a great difference between the brightness of the saints and the
highest brightness or enlightenment to which we may attain in this life. For
it is only the shadow of God which enlightens our inward wilderness, but on
the high mountains of the Promised Land there is no shadow: and yet it is
one and the same Sun, and one radiance, which enlightens both our wilderness
and the high mountains. But the state of the saints is transparent and
shining, and therefore they receive the brightness without intermediary: but
our state is still mortal and gross, and this sets up an obstacle which
causes the shadow, which so darkens our understanding that we cannot know
God and heavenly things so clearly as the saints can and do. For as long as
we dwell in the shadow, we cannot see the sun in itself; but Now we see
through a glass darkly, says St Paul. Yet the shadow is so enlightened by
the sunshine that we can perceive the distinctions between all the virtues,
and all the truth which is profitable to our mortal state. But if we would
become one with the brightness of the Sun, we must follow love, and go out
of ourselves into the Wayless, and then the Sun will draw us with our
blinded eyes into Its own brightness, in which we shall possess unity with
God. So soon we feel and understand ourselves thus, we are in that
contemplative life which is within reach of our mortal state.
The state of the Jews, according to the Old Testament, was cold and in the
night, and they walked in darkness. And they Dwelt in the land of the shadow
of death, says the prophet Isaias. The shadow of death came forth from
original sin; and therefore they had all to endure the lack of God. But
though our state in the Christian faith is but still in the cool and morning
hour; yet for us the day has dawned. And therefore we shall walk in the
light, and shall sit down in the shadow, of God; and His grace shall be an
intermediary between ourselves and God. And, through it, we shall overcome
all things, and shall die to all things, and shall pass without hindrance
into the unity of God. But the state of the saints is warm and bright; for
they live and walk in the noon-tide, and see with open and enlightened eyes
the brightness of the Sun, for the glory of God flows through them and
overflows in them. And each one according to the degree of his
enlightenment, tastes and knows the fruits of all the virtues which have
there been gathered together by all spirits. But that they taste and know
the Trinity in the Unity, and the Unity in the Trinity, and know themselves
united therewith, this is the highest and all-surpassing food which makes
them drunken, and causes them to rest in Its Selfhood. And This it was that
the bride in the Book of Love desired, when she said unto Christ: Tell me, O
thou Whom my soul loveth, where Thou feedest, where Thou makest Thy flock to
rest at noon, that is, in the light of glory, as St Bernard says; for all
the food which is given to us here, in the morning hour and in the shadow,
is but a foretaste of the food that is to come in the noon-tide of the glory
of God.
Yet the bride of our Lord gloried in having sat under the shadow of God, and
that His fruit was sweet to her taste. Whenever we feel that God touches us
from within, we taste of His fruit and His food: for His touch is His food.
And His touch is both indrawing and outpouring, as I have said before. In
His indrawing, we must be wholly His: thereby we learn to die and to behold.
But in His outpouring He wills to be wholly ours: and then He teaches us to
live in the riches of the virtues. In His indrawing-touch all our powers
forsake us, and then we sit under His shadow, and His fruit is sweet to our
taste, for the Fruit of God is the Son of God, Whom the Father brings forth
in our spirit. This Fruit is so infinitely sweet to our taste that we can
neither swallow It nor assimilate It, but It rather absorbs us into Itself
and assimilates us with Itself. [83] And whenever this Fruit draws us inward
and touches us, we abandon, forsake, and overcome all other things. And in
this overcoming of all things, we taste of the hidden manna, which shall
give us eternal life; for we receive the sparkling stone, of which I have
spoken heretofore, in which our new names were written before the beginning
of the world.
This is the New name which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it. And
whosoever feels himself to be for ever united with God, he possesses his
name according to the measure of his virtues, and of his introversion, and
of his union. And, that every one may obtain his name and possess it in
eternity, the Lamb of God, that is, the manhood of our Lord, has delivered
Itself up to death; and has opened for us the Book of Life, wherein are
written all the names of the elect. And these names cannot be blotted out,
for they are one with the Living Book, which is the Son of God. And that
same death has broken for us the seals of the Book, so that all virtues may
be fulfilled according to the eternal Providence of God. And so, in the
measure in which each man can overcome himself, and can die to all things,
he feels the touch of the Father drawing him inward; and then he tastes the
sweetness of the Inborn Fruit, Which is the Son; and in this tasting the
Holy Ghost teaches him that he is the heir of God. But in these three points
no one is like to another in every respect. And therefore each one has been
named separately, and his name is continually made new through new graces
and new works of virtue. And therefore every knee shall bow before the Name
of Jesus, for He has fought for our sake, and has conquered. And He has
enlightened our darkness, and has fulfilled all the virtues in the highest
degree. And so His name is lifted up above all other names, for He is the
King and the Prince over all the elect. And in His name we are called and
chosen, and adorned with grace and with virtues, and look for the glory of
God.
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[83] This, too, seems to have an Augustinian source— “I heard Thy voice from
on high crying unto me, ‘I am the Food of the full-grown: grow, and thou
shalt feed on Me; nor shalt thou change Me into thine own substance, as thou
changest the food of the flesh, but thou shalt be changed into Mine.’”
(Confessions, bk. vii. cap. 10.)
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CHAPTER XII
OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST ON MOUNT THABOR
And so, that the Name of Christ may be exalted and glorified in us, we
should follow Him up the mountain of our bare intelligence, [84] even as
Peter, James and John followed Him on to mount Thabor. Thabor means in our
tongue an increase of light. So soon as we are like Peter in knowledge of
truth, and like James in the overcoming of the world, and like John in
fulness of grace possessing the virtues in righteousness; then Jesus brings
us up on to the mountain of our bare intelligence to a hidden solitude, and
reveals Himself to us in glory and in Divine brightness. And, in His name,
His Father in heaven opens to us the living book of His Eternal Wisdom. And
the Wisdom of God enfolds our bare vision and the simplicity of our spirit
in a wayless, simple fruition of all good without distinction; and here
there are indeed seeing and knowing, tasting and feeling, essence and life,
having and being: and all this is one in our transcendence in God. And
before this transcendence we are all set, each in his own particular way;
and our heavenly Father, of His wisdom and goodness, endows each one in
particular according to the nobility of his life and his practice. And
therefore, if we ever remained with Jesus on mount Thabor, that is, upon the
mountain of our bare thought, we should continually experience a growth of
new light and new truth; for we should ever hear the voice of the Father,
Who touches us, pouring forth with grace, and drawing us inward into the
unity. The voice of the Father is heard by all who follow our Lord Jesus
Christ, for He says of them all: “These are My chosen sons, in whom I am
well pleased.” And, through this good pleasure, each one receives grace,
according to the measure and the way in which God is well-pleasing unto him.
And therefrom, between our pleasure in God, and God’s pleasure in us, there
arises the practice of true love. And so each one tastes of his name and his
office and the fruit of his exercise. And here all good men abide, hidden
from those who live in the world; for these are dead before God and have no
name, and therefore they can neither feel nor taste that which belongs to
those who live indeed.
The outpouring touch of God quickens us with life in the spirit, and
fulfills us with grace, and enlightens our reason, and teaches us to know
truth and to discern the virtues, and keeps us stable in the Presence of
God, with such a great strength that we are able to endure all the tasting,
all the feeling, and all the outpouring gifts of God without our spirits
failing us. But the indrawing-touch of God demands of us, that we should be
one with God, and go forth from ourselves, and die into blessedness, that
is, into the Eternal Love Which embraces the Father and the Son in one
fruition. And therefore when we have climbed with Jesus on to the mountain
of our bare thought; and if, then, we follow Him with a single and simple
gaze, with inward pleasure, and with fruitive inclination, we feel the
fierce heat of the Holy Ghost, burning and melting us into the Unity of God.
For when we are one with the Son, and lovingly return towards our Beginning,
then we hear the voice of the Father, touching us and drawing us inward; for
He says to all His chosen in His Eternal Word: This is My beloved Son, in
Whom I am well pleased. For you should know that the Father with the Son,
and the Son with the Father, have conceived an eternal satisfaction in
regard to this: that the Son should take upon Himself our manhood, and die,
and bring back all the chosen to their Beginning.
And so soon as we are uplifted through the Son into our Origin, we hear the
voice of the Father, which draws us inward, and enlightens us with eternal
truth. And truth shows to us the wide-opened good-pleasure of God, in which
all good-pleasure begins and ends. [85] There all our powers fail us, and we
fall from ourselves into our wide-opened contemplation, and become all One
and one All, in the loving embrace of the Threefold Unity. Whenever we feel
this union, we are one being and one life and one blessedness with God. And
there all things are fulfilled and all things are made new; for when we are
baptized into the wide embrace of the Love of God, the joy of each one of us
becomes so great and so special that he can neither think of nor care for
the joy of anyone else; for then each one is himself a Fruition of Love, and
he cannot and dare not seek for anything beyond his own.
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[84] Ruysbroeck wrote “bloter ghedacten”; probably meaning the simple and
undifferentiated consciousness, above the discursive reason, which is
attained in high contemplative states: the “pure intellect” of Plotinus.
[85] “Dat wide onploken behagene Gods.” Compare note 53.
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CHAPTER XIII
HOW WE OUGHT TO HAVE FRUITION OF GOD
If a man would have fruition of God, three things are needful thereto; these
are, true peace, inward silence, and loving adherence.
Whosoever would find true peace between himself and God must love God in
such a way that he can, with a free heart, renounce for the glory of God
everything which he does or loves inordinately, or which he possesses, or
can possess, contrary to the glory of God. This is the first thing which is
needful to all men.
The second thing is an inward silence; that is, that a man should be empty
and free from images of all things which he ever saw or of which he ever
heard.
The third thing is a loving adherence to God, and this adherence is itself
fruition; for whosoever cleaves to God out of pure love, and not for his own
profit, he enjoys God in truth, and feels that he loves God and that God
loves him.
There are still three other points, which are higher still, and which
establish a man and make him able to enjoy and to feel God continually, if
it be His good will to have it so.
The first of these points is to rest in Him Whom one enjoys; that is, where
love is overcome by the lover, and love is taken possession of by the lover,
in bare Essential Love. There love has fallen in love with the lover, and
each is all to the other, in possession and in rest.
From this there follows the second: and this is called a falling asleep in
God; that is, when the spirit immerses itself, and knows not how, nor where,
nor in what it is.
And therefrom follows the last point that can be put into words, that is,
when the spirit beholds a Darkness into which it cannot enter with the
reason. And there it feels itself dead and lost to itself, and one with God
without difference and without distinction. And when it feels itself one
with God, then God Himself is its peace and its enjoyment and its rest. And
this is an unfathomable abyss wherein man must die to himself in
blessedness, and must live again in virtues, whenever love and its stirring
demand it. Lo! if you feel these six points within you, then you feel all
that I have, or could have, said before. And introversion is as easy to you,
and contemplation and fruition are as ready to you, as your life according
to nature. And from these riches there comes that common life of which I
promised to speak to you at the beginning.
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CHAPTER XIV
OF THAT COMMON LIFE WHICH COMES FROM THE CONTEMPLATION AND FRUITION OF GOD
The man who is sent down by God from these heights into the world is full of
truth and rich in all virtues. And he seeks not his own but the glory of Him
Who has sent him. And hence he is just and truthful in all things, and he
possesses a rich and a generous ground, which is set in the richness of God:
and therefore he must always spend himself on those who have need of him;
for the living fount of the Holy Ghost, which is his wealth, can never be
spent. And he is a living and willing instrument of God, with which God
works whatsoever He wills and howsoever He wills; and these works he reckons
not as his own, but gives all the glory to God. And so he remains ready and
willing to do in the virtues all that God commands, and strong and
courageous in suffering and enduring all that God allows to befall him. And
by this he possesses a universal life, for he is ready alike for
contemplation and for action, and is perfect in both of them. And none can
have this universal life save the God-seeing man; and none can contemplate
and enjoy God save he who has within himself the six points, ordered as I
have described heretofore. And therefore, all those are deceived who fancy
themselves to be contemplative, and yet inordinately love, practice, or
possess, some creaturely thing; or who fancy that they enjoy God before they
are empty of images, or that they rest before they enjoy. All such are
deceived; for we must make ourselves fit for God with an open heart, with a
peaceful conscience, with naked contemplation, without hypocrisy, in
sincerity and truth. And then we shall mount up from virtue unto virtue, and
shall see God, and shall enjoy Him, and in Him shall become one with Him, in
the way which I have shown to you. That this be done in all of us, so help
us God. Amen.
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THE BOOK OF SUPREME TRUTH
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PROLOGUE
The prophet Samuel mourned for King Saul, though he knew well that God had
rejected him and his issue from being kings in Israel: this was because of
his pride, and because he did not obey God and the prophet who spoke in His
name. We may also read in the Gospel, that the disciples of our Lord pleaded
with Him for the Gentile woman of Canaan, to send her away, that is, to do
unto her that which she desired; for she cried after Him. So likewise I
might say that we must mourn for all such deceived men as think themselves
to be kings in Israel; for they believe themselves to be lifted up above
other good men, into a lofty and God-seeing life. And yet they are proud and
wittingly and willingly disobedient to God and the law and the Holy Church
and every virtue. And like as Saul rent the mantle of the prophet Samuel,
they endeavour to rend asunder the unity of the Christian faith, and all
true doctrine and virtuous life. Whosoever persist herein, they are
separated and shut out from the kingdom of eternal contemplation, even as
Saul was shut out from the kingdom of Israel. But that humble little woman
of Canaan, though she was Gentile and a stranger, had faith and hope in God,
and acknowledged and confessed her littleness before Christ and His
apostles: and so she received grace and health and all that she desired. For
God exalts the humble, and fills them with grace and all virtues; and He
resists the proud, and these remain empty of all good.
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CHAPTER I
WHEREFORE THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
Certain of my friends have desired and besought me, that I should show and
make plain in a few words and according to my best cunning, shortly and
clearly, how I understand and feel the truth of all the highest teachings
that I have written before; so that none should take offense at my words,
but everyone should profit by them. And this I willingly consent to do. I
will, with God’s help, teach the humble who love virtue and truth; and, with
the same words, I shall inwardly vex and darken the false and the proud: for
to these my words will be displeasing and contrary, and this the proud
cannot endure, but it provokes them to anger.
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CHAPTER II
A SHORT REPETITION OF ALL THE HIGHEST TEACHINGS WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR
Behold, I have said this: that the contemplative lover of God is united with
God through means, and also without means, and thirdly, without difference
or distinction; and this I find in nature, and in grace, and also in glory.
Further I have said that never creature may be or become so holy that it
loses its created being and becomes God; even the soul of our Lord Jesus
Christ shall ever remain creature, and other than God. Yet, none the less,
we must all be lifted up above ourselves into God, and become one spirit
with God in love; and then we shall be blessed. And therefore mark my words
and my meaning, and understand me aright as to what is the condition and the
way to our eternal blessedness.
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CHAPTER III
OF THE UNION THROUGH MEANS
And next, I will say that all good men are united with God through means.
These means are the grace of God, and the sacraments of Holy Church, and the
Divine virtues, faith, hope and charity, and a virtuous life according to
the commandments of God; and to these there belongs a death to sin and to
the world and to every inordinate lust of nature. And through these, we
remain united with Holy Church, that is, with all good men; and with these,
we obey God, and are one will with Him, even as an orderly convent is united
with its Superior: and without this union none can please God nor be saved.
Whosoever keeps this union through these means unto the end of his life, he
shall be one of those of whom Christ says unto His Father in heaven in the
Gospel of St John: Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me be
with Me where I am: that they may behold My glory which Thou hast given Me.
And in another place He says that His servants shall sit down to meat—that
is, in the richness and the fulness of those virtues which they have
exercised—and He will go one to another and will minister unto them of His
glory which He has achieved. And He will generously impart and reveal to His
beloved, to each one specially and separately—more or less according as he
is worthy of it and can lay hold of it—the loftiness of His glory and honour
which He alone has earned by the merits of His life and His death. Thus all
saints shall be forever with Christ, each in his own order and in the degree
of glory which he has earned through God’s help by his works. And Christ,
according to His manhood shall be set above all saints, and above all
angels, as a prince of all glory and all honour; the which pertain to His
manhood alone above all creatures. Behold, thus you may understand how we
are united with God through means, both here in grace and hereafter in
glory. But there is a great distinction and a great difference in these
means, and this is true both as regards life and reward, as I have told you.
And this was well understood by St Paul, when he said that he had A desire
to depart and to be with Christ. But he did not say that he had a desire to
be Christ Himself or God; as is done by some unbelieving and perverse men,
who say that they have no God, but that they are so wholly dead to
themselves, and united with God, that they have themselves become God.
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CHAPTER IV
OF THE MEN WHO PRACTISE A FALSE VACANCY
Behold, such folk, by means of a onefold simplification and a natural
tendency, are turned in upon the bareness of their own being; and therefore
they think eternal life is and shall be nought else but an enduring state of
beatitude, without distinction in order in holiness or in reward. Yea, all
such are so deep in error that they say that the Persons shall pass away
into the Godhead, and that nought else shall remain in eternity than the
essential substance of the Godhead; and that all blessed spirits shall be so
simply absorbed with God in the Essential Blessedness that nothing shall
remain beside it, neither willing nor working, nor the discerning knowledge
of any creature whatsoever. Behold, these men have gone astray into the
vacant and blind simplicity of their own being, and they seek for
blessedness in bare nature; for they are so simply and so idly united with
the bare essence of their souls, and with that wherein God always is, that
they have neither zeal, nor cleaving to God, neither from without, nor from
within. For in the highest part into which they have entered, they feel
nothing but the simplicity of their own proper being, depending upon the
Being of God. And the onefold simplicity which they there possess, they take
to be God, because they find a natural rest therein. And so they think
themselves to be God in their simple ground; for they lack true faith, hope
and charity. And, because of the naked emptiness which they feel and
possess, they say that they are without knowledge and without love, and are
exempt from the virtues. And so they endeavour to live without heeding their
conscience, what wickedness soever they commit. And they are careless of the
sacraments, and of all virtues, and of all the practices of Holy Church, and
believe that they have no need of them: for they fancy in their folly that
they have passed beyond all these things, but imperfect men, they say, have
need of them. And some men have become so accustomed to and deep-rooted in
this simplification that they would know and heed as little of all the works
which God has wrought, and all that Scripture teaches, as though not one
line had ever been written; for they believe themselves to have found and to
possess that for the sake of which all Scriptures have been made, namely,
the blind essential rest which they feel. But in fact they have lost God and
all the ways which may lead to Him; for they have no more inwardness, nor
more devotion, nor holy practices, than a dead beast has. Yet they sometimes
approach the sacraments, and at times they quote the Scriptures, that thus
they may the better dissimulate and cover themselves; and they like to take
some dark saying of Scripture, which they can falsely turn to their own
sense, so that they may please other simple men, and may draw them into the
false vacancy which they themselves feel. Behold, these folk think
themselves wise and subtle beyond any one else, and yet they are the most
coarse and crude of all men living; for that which even Pagans and Jews and
bad Christians, learned and unlearned, find and understand through their
natural reason, these wretched men neither can nor will attain. You may
cross yourselves against the devil, but beware earnestly of these perverted
men, and take care lest you should not recognise them in their words and
works. For they would teach, and be taught of none; they would reprove, and
be reproved of none; they would command, and obey none. They would oppress
others, but no one may oppress them; they wish to say whatever they like,
but will endure no contradiction; they recognise only their own self-will
and are subject to no one; and this they take to be ghostly freedom. They
practise the liberty of the flesh, for they give to the body whatsoever it
lusts after; and this they take to be natural freedom. They have unified
themselves in a blind and dark vacancy of their own being; and there, they
think, they are one with God, and they take this for the Eternal
Blessedness. And they have entered into this, and have taken possession of
it, through self-will and their natural tendency; and therefore they imagine
themselves to be set above the law and above the commandments of God and
Holy Church. For, above that essential rest which they possess, they feel
neither God nor any otherness; for the Divine light has not shone into their
dimness. And this is because they have neither sought after it through
active love nor through supernatural freedom. And thus they have lost truth
and every virtue, and have fallen into a perverted unlikeness; for they make
it a part of the highest holiness that a man should yield to all that
concerns his nature, and be without restraint, so that he may abide, with an
inclined spirit, in vacancy; and that as regards the lusts of the flesh
whenever they move him, he should turn outwards, that the flesh being
satisfied, he may quickly escape from the image and may return once more
unencumbered into the bare vacancy of his spirit. Lo! this is a fruit of
hell, which grows from their unbelief; and therewith shall unbelief be
nourished even in death. For, when the time has come and their nature is
weighed down with bitter woe and the sorrow of death, then they are filled
with images and unrest and inward fear; and they lose their vacant
introversion in quietude, and fall into such despair that none can console
them, and they die like mad dogs. And their vacancy shall bring them no
reward, and those who worked wicked works, and died in them shall go to the
eternal flames, as our faith teaches.
I have shown to you the evil and the good side by side, so that you may so
much the better understand the good and be able to guard against the evil.
You shall abhor and fly from such folk, for, how holy soever they seem in
their conduct, in works, in dress and demeanour, they are the mortal enemies
of your soul. For they are the devil’s ministers, and the most noxious of
all who now live to simple and unlearned men of good-will. But I will leave
this subject, and go back again to the matter with which I first began.
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CHAPTER V
OF THE UNION WITHOUT MEANS
You may remember that I showed heretofore how all saints and all good men
are united with God through means. Now I will further show to you how they
are all united with God without means. But in this life there are but few
who are meet for this, and sufficiently enlightened to feel and understand
it. And therefore, whosoever wishes to find and to feel within himself those
three unions of which I am going to speak, he must live entirely and wholly
in God, so that he may satisfy and be amenable to the grace and the stirring
of God, in all virtues and inward exercises. And he must be lifted up
through love, and die in God to himself and all his works; so that he yields
himself up with all his powers, and submits to the transformation through
the incomprehensible Truth which is God Himself. And to that end it is
needful that living he should go forth in the virtues, and dying should
enter into God. And in these two things his perfect life consists; and these
two are joined together within him like matter and form, like body and soul.
[86] And as he exercises himself in them so he becomes clear in
understanding, and rich and overflowing in feeling; for he has joined
himself to God with uplifted powers, with true intention, with his heart’s
desire, with ceaseless craving, with the living ardour of his spirit and of
his nature. And since he thus exercises himself and keeps himself in the
Presence of God, love overpowers him: in whatsoever manner he moves, he is
ever growing in love and in all virtues. But love always moves each man
according to the profit and the ability of each.
_________________________________________________________________
[86] It will be seen that this is another aspect of that balanced life of
action and fruition described in The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage,
which parallels on the human plane the essentially static and personally
dynamic aspects of the Divine life. Compare note 66.
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CHAPTER VI
OF HEAVENLY WEAL AND HELLISH WOE
The most profitable stirrings which such a man can feel, and for which he is
best fitted, are heavenly weal and hellish woe, and the ability to respond
to these two with fit and proper works. For heavenly weal lifts a man up
above all things into an untrammelled power of praising and loving God in
every way that his heart and his soul desire. After this comes hellish woe,
and casts him down into a misery, and into a lack of all the comfort and
consolation that he experienced before. In this woe, weal sometimes shows
itself, and brings with it a hope which none can gainsay. And then the man
falls back again into a despair in which he can find no consolation. When a
man feels God within himself with rich and full grace, this I call heavenly
health; for then he is wise and clear of understanding, rich and outflowing
with heavenly teachings, ardent and generous in charity, drunken and
overflowing with joy, strong in feeling, bold and ever ready in all the
things which he knows to be well pleasing to God; and such-like things
without number, which may only be known by those who feel them. But when the
scale of love goes down, and God hides Himself with all His graces, then the
man falls back into dereliction and torment and dark misery, as though he
should never more recover: and then he feels himself to be nought else but a
poor sinner, who knows little or nothing of God. He scorns every consolation
that creatures may give him; and the taste and consolation of God he does
not receive. And then his reason says within him: Where is now thy God? What
hath become of all that thou didst receive from God? Then his Tears are his
meat day and night, as the Prophet says. Now if that man is to recover from
this misery, he must observe and feel that he does not belong to himself,
but to God; and therefore he must freely abandon his own will to the will of
God, and must leave God to work in him in time and in eternity. So soon as
he can do this, with untroubled heart, and with a free spirit, at that very
moment he recovers his health, and brings heaven into hell, and hell into
heaven. For howsoever the scales of love go up and down, all things to him
are even or alike. For whatsoever love gives or takes away, he who abandons
himself and loves God finds peace in all. For his spirit remains free and
unmoved, who lives in all pains without rebellion; and he is able to feel
the unmediated union with God. For he has achieved the union through means
by the richness of his virtues. And after this, because he is one aim and
one will with God, he feels God within himself together with the fulness of
His grace, as the quickening health of his being and all his works.
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CHAPTER VII
SHOWING WHEREFORE ALL GOOD MEN DO NOT ATTAIN TO THE UNMEDIATED UNION WITH GOD
But now you may ask me why all good men do not attain to feel this. Now
listen and I will tell you the why and the wherefore. They do not respond to
the stirring of God with a forsaking of themselves, and so they do not abide
with quickening fervour before the Presence of God; and also they are not
careful of heart in their inward self-examination. And therefore they always
remain more outward and manifold than inward and simple, and they work their
works more from good custom than from inward feeling. And they care more for
particular methods and the greatness and multiplicity of good works than for
the intention and love towards God. And so they remain outward and manifold
of heart, and are not aware of how God lives in them with the fulness of
grace.
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CHAPTER VIII
SHOWING HOW THE INWARD MAN SHOULD EXERCISE HIMSELF, THAT HE MAY BE UNITED
WITH GOD WITHOUT MEANS
But now I will tell you how the inward man, who has health amidst all
miseries, should feel himself to be one with God without means. When such a
quickened man rises up, with his whole being and all his powers, and joins
himself to God with life-giving and active love, then he feels that his love
is, in its ground, where it begins and ends, fruitive and without ground. If
he then wishes to penetrate further, with his active love into that fruitive
love: then, all the powers of his soul must give way, and they must suffer
and patiently endure that piercing Truth and Goodness which is God’s self.
For, as the air is penetrated by the brightness and heat of the sun, and
iron is penetrated by fire; so that it works through fire the works of fire,
since it burns and shines like the fire, and so likewise it can be said of
the air—for, if the air had understanding, it could say: “I enlighten and
brighten the whole world”—yet each of these keeps its own nature. For the
fire does not become iron and the iron does not become fire, though their
union is without means; for the iron is within the fire and the fire within
the iron; and so also the air is in the sunshine and the sunshine in the air
[87] . So likewise is God in the being of the soul; and whenever the soul’s
highest powers are turned inward with active love, they are united with God
without means, in a simple knowledge of all truth, and in an essential
feeling and tasting of all good. This simple knowing and feeling of God is
possessed in essential love, and is practised and preserved through active
love. And therefore it is accidental to our powers through the dying
introversion in love; but it is essential to our being, and always abides
within it. And therefore we must perpetually turn inwards and be renewed in
love, if we would seek out love through love. And this is taught us by St
John, where he says: He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in
him. And though this union of the loving spirit with God is without means,
yet there is here a great distinction, for the creature never becomes God,
nor does God ever become the creature; as I explained to you heretofore in
the example of the iron wnd the fire. And if material things, which have
been made by God, may thus be united without means; so much the more may He,
whenever such is His pleasure, unite himself with his beloved, if they,
through His grace, submit to it and make themselves ready for it. And so in
such an inward man, whom God has adorned with virtues, and, above that, has
lifted up into a contemplative life, there is no intermediary between
himself and God in his highest introversion but his enlightened reason and
his active love. And through these two things, he has an adherence to God;
and this is “becoming one with God,” says St Bernard. But above reason, and
above active love, he is lifted up into a naked contemplation, and dwells
without activity in essential love. And there he is one love and one spirit
with God, as I said heretofore. In this essential love through the unity
which he has essentially with God, he infinitely transcends his
understanding; and this is a life common to all God-seeing men. For in this
transcendence such a man is able to see in one sight—if it be God’s pleasure
to show it to him—all the creatures in heaven and on earth, with the
distinction of their lives and their rewards. But before the Infinity of
God, he must yield, and must follow after It essentially and without end;
for This no creature, not even the soul of our Lord Jesus Christ, which yet
received the highest union above all other creatures, can either comprehend
or overtake.
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[87] This ancient simile for the union of the soul with God is constantly
used by Ruysbroeck. It goes back at least to the fourth century A.D.; being
found in the sermons of St Macarius. Ruysbroeck probably took it from St
Bernard (De diligendo Deo, cap. 10), or possibly Richard of St Victor (De
Quatuor Gradibus Violentae Charitatis).
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CHAPTER IX
OF THE INWARD WORKING OF GOD’S GRACE
Behold, this Eternal Love, which lives within the spirit, and with which it
is united without means, gives its light and its grace to all the powers of
the soul; and becomes thereby the cause of all the virtues. For the grace of
God touches the highest powers of the soul, and from this touch there spring
charity and the knowledge of truth, the love of all righteousness, the
practice of the counsels of God according to discretion, freedom from
images, the overcoming of all things without effort, and the death into the
Unity through love. As long as a man can maintain himself in this exercise,
he is able to contemplate, and to feel the union without means; and he feels
the touch of God within himself, which is a renewal of grace and all
virtues. You must further know that the grace of God also pours forth even
through the lowest powers, and touches a man’s heart; and from this there
comes forth a heart-felt love towards God and a sensible joy in Him; and the
love and delight pierce through heart and senses, through flesh and blood,
and the whole bodily nature, and cause a pressure and restlessness in all
his members, so that he is often at his wit’s end. For he feels like a man
full of wine, who is no longer master of himself. And from this there come
many a strange state, wherein men of tender heart cannot well govern
themselves. Sometimes through impatient longing, they lift up their heads
and gaze with wide-opened eyes towards heaven; now joying, now weeping; now
singing, now crying; now in weal, now in woe, and often both together;
running and jumping, laughing, clapping their hands, kneeling, bowing down:
and many other like gestures are seen in them. So long as a man remains
thus, and lifts himself up with an open heart towards those riches of God
which live in his spirit, he feels ever anew the stirring of God, and the
impatience of love; and then all these things are renewed in him. And so
this man through this bodily feeling may sometimes pass into a ghostly
feeling which is according to reason; and through this ghostly feeling, he
may pass into a godly feeling, which is above reason; and, through this
godly feeling, he may drown himself in an unchangeable and beatific feeling.
This feeling is our superessential blessedness, which is a fruition of God
and all His beloved: and this blessedness is that Dark Quiet which ever
abides in idleness. To God it is essential, and to all creatures
superessential. And there we may behold how the Persons give place and abide
in the Essential Love, that is, in the Fruitive Unity and yet they dwell for
ever, according to Their personal nature, in the working of the Trinity.
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CHAPTER X
OF THE MUTUAL CONTENTMENT OF THE DIVINE PERSONS, AND THE MUTUAL CONTENTMENT
BETWEEN GOD AND GOOD MEN
And so you may perceive that the Divine Nature eternally works according to
the Persons, and is eternally idle and wayless according to the simplicity
of Its Essence. All therefore that God has chosen and laid hold of with
eternal personal love, has already been essentially and fruitively possessed
of Him in unity with essential love. For the Divine Persons are enfolded
within the Unity in a mutual embrace in an eternal contentment, in abysmal
active love. And this is perpetually renewed in the lifegiving life of the
Trinity; for here there takes place a perpetual new birth in new knowledge
new contentment and new outbreathing; in a new embrace with new torrents of
Eternal Love. In this contentment all the chosen are enfolded: angels and
men, from the first even to the last. Upon this contentment depend heaven
and earth, and life and being and the activity and preservation of all
creatures, save only the tendency to turn from God in sin: this comes from
the wilful and blind wickedness of the creatures. From the Divine
contentment grace and glory and all gifts pour forth in heaven and on earth,
and into each creature separately, according to its needs and its
receptivity. For God’s grace is made ready for all men, and awaits the
conversion of every sinner, and whenever a sinner, urged by grace, renounces
himself and will call upon God with faith, he finds pardon. And likewise,
whosoever through grace with loving contentment turns towards the Eternal
Contentment of God, he is enwrapped and embraced in the abysmal love which
is God Himself. And thereby he is perpetually renewed in love and in the
virtues; for, between our contentment in God and God’s contentment in us
there abides an activity of love and of eternal life. But God has eternally
loved us and established us within His contentment, and if we rightly
observe this, our love and our contentment shall be wakened anew. For, in
the mutual relations of the Persons in the Godhead, this contentment
perpetually renews itself, in a new gushing forth of love, in an ever new
embrace within the Unity. And this takes place beyond Time; that is, without
before and after, in an eternal NOW. For, in this embrace in the Unity, all
things are consummated; and in the gushing forth of love, all things are
wrought; and in the life-giving and fruitful Nature lie the power and
possibilities of all things. For in the life-giving and fruitful Nature, the
Son is in the Father, and the Father in the Son, and the Holy Ghost in Both.
For It is a life-giving and fruitful Unity, which is the home and the
beginning of all life and of all becoming. And so all creatures are therein,
beyond themselves, one Being and one Life with God, as in their Eternal
Origin. But in the precession of the different Persons, the Son proceeds
from the Father, and the Holy Ghost from Both: and it is there that God has
made and ordained all creatures according to their proper being, and has
re-made man, through His grace and His death, inasmuch as he cleaves to Him.
And He has adorned His own with love and with the virtues; and has turned
back with them, towards His Origin.
There the Father and the Son and all the beloved are enfolded and embraced
in the bonds of love; that is, in the unity of the Holy Ghost. And this is
that same unity which is fruitful in the outgoing activity of the Persons,
and forms in Their return an eternal bond of love which shall never be
untied: and all who know themselves to be bound up in it shall be blessed
throughout eternity, and they are rich in virtue, and clear in
contemplation, and simple in fruitive rest. For in their introversion, the
Love of God is revealed to them, pouring forth with all good, and drawing
back again into the Unity, and above all being and beyond all conditions
abiding in eternal rest. And so they are all united with God, through means,
and without means, and also without distinction.
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CHAPTER XI
HOW GOOD MEN IN THEIR CONTEMPLATION HAVE THE LOVE OF GOD BEFORE THEM, AND HOW
THEY ARE LIFTED UP INTO GOD
They have the Love of God before them in their inward seeing, as a common
good pouring forth through heaven and earth; and they feel the Holy Trinity
inclined towards them, and within them, with fulness of grace. And therefore
they are adorned without and within with all the virtues, with holy
practices and with good works. And thus they are united with God through
Divine grace and their own holy lives. And because they have abandoned
themselves to God in doing, in leaving undone, and in suffering, they have
steadfast peace and inward joy, consolation and savour, of which the world
cannot partake; neither any dissembler, nor the man who seeks and means
himself more than the glory of God. Moreover, those same inward and
enlightened men have before them in their inward seeing whenever they will,
the Love of God as something drawing or urging them into the Unity; for they
see and feel that the Father with the Son through the Holy Ghost, embrace
Each Other and all the chosen, and draw themselves back with eternal love
into the unity of Their Nature. Thus the Unity is ever drawing to itself and
inviting to itself everything that has been born of It, either by nature or
by grace. And therefore, too, such enlightened men are, with a free spirit,
lifted up above reason into a bare and imageless vision, wherein lives the
eternal indrawing summons of the Divine Unity; and, with an imageless and
bare understanding, they pass through all works, and all exercises, and all
things, until they reach the summit of their spirits. There, their bare
understanding is drenched through by the Eternal Brightness, even as the air
is drenched through by the sunshine. And the bare, uplifted will is
transformed and drenched through by abysmal love, even as iron is by fire.
And the bare, uplifted memory feels itself enwrapped and established in an
abysmal Absence of Image. And thereby the created image is united above
reason in a threefold way with its Eternal Image, which is the origin of its
being and its life; and this origin is preserved and possessed, essentially
and eternally, through a simple seeing in an imageless void: and so a man is
lifted up above reason in a threefold manner into the Unity, and in a
onefold manner into the Trinity. Yet the creature does not become God, for
the union takes place in God through grace and our homeward-turning love:
and therefore the creature in its inward contemplation feels a distinction
and an otherness between itself and God. And though the union is without
means, yet the manifold works which God works in heaven and on earth are
nevertheless hidden from the spirit. For though God gives Himself as He is,
with clear discernment, He gives Himself in the essence of the soul, where
the powers of the soul are simplified above reason, and where, in
simplicity, they suffer the transformation of God. [88] There all is full
and overflowing, for the spirit feels itself to be one truth and one
richness and one unity with God. Yet even here there is an essential tending
forward, and therein is an essential distinction between the being of the
soul and the Being of God; and this is the highest and finest distinction
which we are able to feel.
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[88] “Hi gheeft hem in dat wesen der sielen, dar der sielen crachten, boven
redene, gheenvoldicht sijn en ghedaghen die overforminghen Gods eenvoldigher
wijs.” Reason, will and love must here be fused in one simple state, in
order that they may apprehend the Unity in which an wisdom, love and will
are resumed. This doctrine of self-simplification was well understood by the
Platonic mystics and has passed from them into the Christian tradition. Thus
Plotinus says, “The soul must ascend to the principle which is in herself,
and become one instead of many, in order that she may contemplate the
Principle of all things, and the One.” (On the Good, or the One.)
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CHAPTER XII
OF THE HIGHEST UNION, WITHOUT DIFFERENCE OR DISTINCTION
And after this there follows the union without distinction. For you must
apprehend the Love of God not only as an outpouring with all good, and as
drawing back again into the Unity; but it is also, above all distinction, an
essential fruition in the bare Essence of the Godhead. And in consequence of
this enlightened men have found within themselves an essential contemplation
which is above reason and without reason, and a fruitive tendency which
pierces through every condition and all being, and through which they
immerse themselves in a wayless abyss of fathomless beatitude, where the
Trinity of the Divine Persons possess Their Nature in the essential Unity.
Behold, this beatitude is so onefold and so wayless that in it every
essential gazing, tendency, and creaturely distinction cease and pass away.
For by this fruition, all uplifted spirits are melted and noughted in the
Essence of God, Which is the superessence of all essence. There they fall
from themselves into a solitude and an ignorance which are fathomless; there
all light is turned to darkness; there the three Persons give place to the
Essential Unity, and abide without distinction in fruition of essential
blessedness. This blessedness is essential to God, and superessential to all
creatures; for no created essence can become one with God’s Essence and pass
away from its own substance. For so the creature would become God, which is
impossible; for the Divine Essence can neither wax nor wane, nor can
anything be added to It or taken from It. Yet all loving spirits are one
fruition and one blessedness with God without distinction; for that beatific
state, which is the fruition of God and of all His beloved, is so simple and
onefold that therein neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy Ghost, is distinct
according to the Persons, neither is any creature. But all enlightened
spirits are here lifted up above themselves into a wayless fruition, which
is an abundance beyond all the fulness that any creature has ever received
or shall ever receive. For there all uplifted spirits are, in their
superessence, one fruition and one beatitude with God without distinction;
and there this beatitude is so onefold that no distinction can enter into
it. And this was prayed for by Christ when He besought His Father in heaven
that all His beloved might be made perfect in one, even as He is one with
the Father through the Holy Ghost: even so He prayed and besought that He in
us and we in Him and His heavenly Father might be one in fruition through
the Holy Ghost. And this I think the most loving prayer which Christ ever
made for our blessedness.
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CHAPTER XIII
OF THE THREEFOLD PRAYER OF CHRIST, THAT WE MIGHT BE ONE WITH GOD
But you should also observe that His prayer, as it has been written by St
John in this same Gospel, was threefold. For He prayed that we might be with
Him, that we might behold the glory which His Father had given Him. And
therefore I said at the beginning that all good men are united with God by
means of Divine grace and their own virtuous life; for the love of God is
always pouring into us with new gifts, and whosoever is aware of this is
fulfilled with new virtues and holy exercises and with all good, in the way
that I told you heretofore: and this union through the fulness of grace and
glory, in body and soul, begins here below and shall endure throughout
eternity.
Further, Christ prayed thus, that He might be in us and we in Him. This we
find in the Gospel, in many places. And this is the union without means; for
the Love of God is not only outpouring, but it also draws us inwards, into
the Unity. And those who feel and are aware of this, become inward and
enlightened men, and their highest powers are uplifted, above all exercises,
into their naked being: and there, above reason, the powers become
simplified in their essence, and so they are full and overflowing. For in
that simplicity, the spirit finds itself united with God without means; and
this union, with the exercise which belongs to it, shall endure eternally,
as I have told you heretofore.
Further, Christ uttered His most sublime prayer, namely, that His beloved
might be made perfect in one, as He is one with the Father: not one as He is
with the Father one single Divine Substance, for this is impossible to us;
but so one, and in such a unity, as He is one fruition and one beatitude
with the Father without distinction in Essential Love. Those who are thus
united with God in this threefold way, in them the prayer of Christ has been
fulfilled.
These with God shall ebb and flow,
Having and joying, they shall empty go;
They shall both work and passively endure,
And in their superessence rest secure.
They shall go out and in, and find their food,
And, drunk with love, in radiant darkness sleep in God.
Many more words I should like to say here, but those who possess this have
no need of them: and he to whom it has been shown, and who cleaves with love
to Love, he shall be taught the whole truth by Love itself. But those who
turn outwards, and would find consolation in outward things, do not feel
this; and, even though I should say much more of it, yet they would not
understand. For those who give themselves wholly to outward works, or those
who are idle in inward passivity, shall never be able to understand it. Now
although reason and all bodily feelings must here give place and yield to
the faith and contemplation of the spirit, [89] and to those things which
are above reason; yet reason and also the life of the senses continue to
abide in their place, and cannot pass away, any more than the nature of man
can pass away. And further, though the gazing and tendency of the spirit
towards God must give place to fruition in simplicity; yet this gazing and
this tendency continue to exist in their place. [90] For this is the inmost
life of the spirit; and, in the enlightened and uplifted man, the life of
the senses adheres to the spirit. And so his sensual powers are joined to
God by heart-felt love, and his nature is fulfilled with all good; and he
feels that his ghostly life adheres to God without means. And thereby his
highest powers are uplifted to God in eternal love, and drenched through by
Divine truth, and established in imageless freedom. And so he is filled with
God, and overflowing without measure. In this inundation there comes to pass
the essential outpouring or immersion in the superessential Unity; and this
is the union without distinction, of which I have often told you. For in the
superessence all our ways end. If we will go with God upon the highway of
love, we shall rest with Him eternally and without end: and thus we shall
eternally go forth towards God and enter into Him and rest in Him.
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[89] The Flemish word “instaerne,” which Ruysbroeck here uses, conveys the
idea of an absorbed inward gazing, for which we have no exact expression in
English.
[90] “Staende in syn abijt.” This phrase has puzzled all translators, from
Surius onwards. Taken with its context, it seems to mean that the self’s
ascent to the heights of Divine fruition does not entail any impoverishment
of the lower levels of existence. The senses, the intellect, the normal
religious faculty, each continue to exist “in their own place.” This is
another statement of the profound truth insisted upon in The Sparkling
Stone: that the completed life of man, like that of its Pattern Christ, is
both active and contemplative, both human and divine—“living wholly in God
where we possess our blessedness, and wholly in ourselves where we exercise
ourselves in love to God.”
_________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER XIV
HERE THE AUTHOR DECLARES THAT HE SUBMITS ALL THAT HE HAS WRITTEN TO THE
JUDGMENT OF HOLY CHURCH
Now at this time I cannot set forth my meaning more clearly. In all that I
understand, or feel, or have written, I submit myself to the judgment of the
saints and of Holy Church; for I wish to live and to die as a servant of
Christ, in the Christian faith; and I desire to be, by the grace of God, a
life-giving member of Holy Church. And therefore, as I told you heretofore,
you should beware of those self-deceived men who, by means of their idle
vacancy, and with their bare and simple gaze have found the Divine Essence
within themselves in a merely natural way; and who pretend to be one with
God without the grace of God, and without exercise of virtue, and without
obedience to God and to Holy Church. And for all their perversity of life,
which I have described, they would be one with God’s Son by nature. But if
the Prince of all the angels was cast out of heaven, because he set himself
up against God and would be like unto the most High; and if the first man
was driven from Paradise because he would be as God: how then shall this
wretched sinner—that is, the faithless Christian who would be as God without
likeness to God in grace and virtue—ever rise from earth into heaven? For
through his own power no man has ascended into heaven, save the Son of Man,
Jesus Christ. And therefore we must unite ourselves with Him, through grace
and virtue and Christian faith: so we shall ascend with Him whither He has
gone before us. For in the Last Day we shall all rise, each with his own
body; and then those who have worked good works shall go into life
everlasting, and those who have worked evil works shall go into everlasting
fire. These are two unlike ends, which shall never come together for each
flies from the other perpetually.
Pray for him who has composed and written this, that God may have mercy upon
him. That his poor beginning, and his and our wretched middle course may be
brought to a blessed end, this may Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God,
bestow upon us all. Amen.
_________________________________________________________________
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"All joy wants eternity!" —Nietzsche
The essays by the authors included in this blog are in the public domain and are copyright-free.
Upanishads, Psalms, Proverbs and Song of Songs, Buddha (The Lankavatara Sutra, Lotus of the True Law, Maha-Satipatthana Sutra, Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana), Bhagavad Gita, Plato, The Four Gospels, Aurelius, Plotinus, St. Augustine, Ramanuja, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius, Shankara, St. Francis, Ruusbroec, Theologia Germanica, Thomas a Kempis, Boehme, Eckhart, Dante, Cloud of Unknowing, St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, Law, Emerson, Underhill
(Coming: Jacopone da Todi, Angela of Foligno, Mirror of Simple Souls) (Not included because of copyright issues: Jane Roberts/Seth)
"You can only behold that which you are."
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"All joy wants eternity!" —Nietzsche
Dear Reader:
The purpose of this site is make available, in one place, the major works by some of the great seers of the world—individuals that were able to see and experience the spiritual reality that forms and comprises the physical reality that we normally experience. The great and ancient Indian seers are represented by the Upanishads (c. 1000 BCE) and the Bhagavad Gita (c. 500 BCE), both in their entirety; the poetic expression of the Upanishads is “developed and enriched,” as Aldous Huxley said, “in the Bhagavad Gita.” There are three texts included here that represent the thoughts of the Buddha (c. 563 to 483 BCE). The first is the Dhammapada, verses that were thought to have been delivered by the Buddha on various occasions, most of which deal with ethics. The most important verse, however, is the first, which opens with the line: "All that we are is the result of what we have thought." This is reminescent of the line from Proverbs, "As a man thinketh in his heart," and it is in these lines that one finds the essence of the Buddha's teaching. Next in the collection is the "Lankavatara Sutra," and it is unfortunate that this abridged edition does not contain his sermon on not killing animals and not eating meat, which he was opposed to under any circumstances and which many of the followers of the Buddha conveniently ignore. For him, “Respect for animal life is an integral part of morality. A good Buddhist does not kill animals for pleasure or eat flesh. They are his humble brethren and now lower creatures over whom he has dominion by divine right. Serenity of spirit and love for all sentient creation are enjoined by the Buddha” (Radhakrishnan in his introduction to The Dhammapada). (It is curious that in Thailand, for example, 95 percent of the population profess to be Buddhist, yet they gorge themselves on meat at every meal, and between meals as roasted snacks from roadside stands.) I have also included the complete version, which does contain the chapter on not eating meat. The underlying theme of this work is the fact that mind or consciousness is at the foundation of all reality: "the objects of the world, and the names and forms of experience, are merely manifestations of the mind. It is the erroneous concept of subject/object that ties us to the wheel of rebirth" (Wikipedia). The Lankavatara Sutra and the later The Awakening of Mahayana Faith both emphasize consciousness as the basic substance of all reality, that all things are from consciousness and of consciousness or mind, thus bringing this later form of Buddhism in line with the earlier thought of Plotinus, and it is the act of contemplation that "makes" what it contemplates. As Jane Roberts would later say, "reality [all reality] is idea construction." This particular Sutra had perhaps more influence than any other on the development of Mahayana and Zen Buddhism. Finally there is the Buddha's Maha-satipatthana Sutra, which is perhaps the best Buddhist text on "mindfulness" or awareness, which is necessary for right living and for perceiving reality as it is. It is perhaps the most reproduced of all the Sutras, and in Ceylon, for example, "the Satipatthana ...is reverently wrapped in a clean cloth, and from time to time, in the evening it is read to the members of the family" (Nyanaponika Thera). It can be said, and has been many times, that "mindfulness" is the core of the Buddha's teaching. One last note on Buddhism, or rather on the commentary on Buddhism. The Buddha never spoke directly about man having a soul, although behind all of his teaching is the idea that there is more to reality than our personal self or ego. Life for the Buddha is basically change, and it is our ego that attempts to solidify a self around which we build our lives. He also speaks repeatedly about the essential non-duality of reality, and that it is ethically incumbent upon us to attempt to overcome our grasping after fact and permanence in our experience. Practice in mindfulness is the main road to this realization of the inherent non-dual nature of reality. The commentators on the Buddha's sutras, however, have taken a step that the Buddha refused to take throughout his life in asserting the non-existence of a soul. Because the ego is impermanent, they say, there is no such thing as a soul. It is not the perception of nothingness that the Buddha suggests is the aim of meditation or awareness; it is rather "the highest and purest state of the soul, when it enjoys the untrammeled bliss of its own nature" (Ramakrishnan). As the Buddha put it, it is a "state of love without an object of love," "the spiritual hidden below the sensible appearances" (Radhakrishnan). Twenty-five hundred years later, Jane Roberts/Seth says the same thing: "Love is a biological as well as a spiritual characteristic. Basically, love and creativity are synonymous. Love exists without an object. It is the impetus by which all being becomes manifest." This is what the Dhammapada and the Buddha's entire corpus is about—training the mind and removing the obstacles to the realization of this experience of love and joy, and he admonishes us to see it in all sentient being. Plato’s Republic (428-348 BCE) is offered in a complete version, along with some of his other dialogues that deal most directly with the metaphysical. As Emerson said of him, “No man ever more fully acknowledged the Ineffable”: “the Asia in his mind was first heartily honored,—the ocean of love and power, before form, before will, before knowledge, the Same, the Good, the One; and now, refreshed and empowered by this worship, the instinct of Europe, namely, culture, returns; and he cries, Yet things are knowable!” Included in this collection is the gospel according to John (c. 100), which is considered by many to be the most poetic and mystical of the four gospels. Neither Jesus nor the Buddha did any writing themselves, and the texts that we have representing their thought are far removed from their physical lives, so it is difficult to tell for sure what they actually thought or said—Christian dogmatism notwithstanding. For the other authors included here, we have translations that purport to be close to the original writing. If this blog is a collection of the world’s great seers, then Marcus Aurelius (121-180) probably does not belong here, if he will forgive me. However, he is included for a couple of reasons. For one thing, his writing represents what you might call the culmination of one line or angle of centuries of thought Greek and Roman thought in general and of Stoic thought in particular: he is Stoicism’s best representative. The other reason concerns what the Meditations, and Stoicism, are about. According to Pierre Hadot, “The Stoic philosophical life consists essentially in mastering one’s inner discourse.” We saw above that for the Buddha, reality is essentially mind or consciousness, and his philosophy might be summarized in his injunction: “Be mindful!” By mindful, he may have meant cultivating awareness of your thinking and simultaneously distancing yourself from that thinking; in other words, meditation. It is this “action” of the mind that leads to ultimate liberation into the soul (“true meditation is action,” according to Jane Roberts/Seth. action is not a force from without that acts upon matter. “Action is, instead, the inside vitality of the inner universe—it is the dilemma between inner vitality's desire and impetus to completely materialize itself, and its inability to completely do so.) The Buddha’s aim may have been more metaphysical than that of Marcus Aurelius because of the depth of his own insight into the spiritual dimension at the base of the physical one; nevertheless, the reader will find in Marcus Aurelius a kindred spirit of the Buddha in his honest struggle to master his own mind in the Meditations and for this reason they are included here. The Enneads of Plotinus (204-270) are offered complete. Following his master Plato, Plotinus not only believed but saw that the world that we perceive is an emanation of a spiritual world, which we are able to access through contemplation. For him, “Every soul is, and becomes, that which she contemplates.” Like the Indian seers before him, Plotinus realized the identity of our self with the source of that self, of the Atman with Brahman; hence the similarities between Vedanta and Neo-Platonism. In the Chandogya Upanishad, Svetaketu's father says to him, "Here likewise in this body of yours, my son, you do not perceive the True; but there in fact it is. In that which is the subtle essence, all that exists has its self. That is the True, that is the Self, and thou, Svetaketu, art That." (For an essential overview of Plotinus' thought, read treatises I 6 "On the Beautiful" and VI 9 ""On the Good.") Next is St. John's record of the life and thought of Jesus, which is considered by many to be the most poetic and mystical of the four gospels. I have included the gospel of John with the other three gospels for comparison. The texts representing the thought of the Buddha and Jesus are far removed from the physical lives, and they did no writing themselves, so it is impossible to determine, obviously, what they actually thought and said—Christian dogmatism notwithstanding. For most of the authors included here, however, we have translations of texts that are purported to be close to the originals. Next we move on to the Confessions of St. Augustine (354-430), which draws on both Neo-Platonic and Christian traditions. The complete text is offered. Shankara’s (788-820) Crest-Jewel of Wisdom, a systemization of the earlier tradition of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, is included. Dante’s (1265-1321) Paradiso is included, as it, as Evelyn Underhill has said with reference to the entire Comedia, is one of “the most sublime visions of the Absolute which has ever been crystallized into speech”…and “apprehends and shows to us a Beatific Vision in which the symbolic systems of all great mystics are included and explained.” Three major works of the 16th c. Spanish nun, St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), are offered, as well as the two major works of the 18th c. spiritual writer William Law (1686-1761). Of the three works by St. Teresa, The Interior Castle is her best statement of her perception of inner reality, and her work generally was chosen for the clarity of its writing. Too often Christian writers obscure the meaning of their experience with the heavy use of metaphor both in their interpretation of their experience and in the communication of it to the reader. This is not less so with St. Teresa, however; in The Interior Castle, for example, she uses the idea of seven dwelling places within the “castle” of the mind, representing levels of consciousness or aspects of the soul. It was tempting to include Shakespeare in this collection despite the fact that he is a poet and not a “mystic”—Emerson called him a Platonist in that he belonged to that “well-marked class of souls, namely, those who delight in giving a spiritual, that is, an ethico-intellectual expression to every truth, by exhibiting an ulterior end which is yet legitimate to it.” Emerson’s (1803-1882) essay that catapulted him onto the international stage, Nature, and his Essays: First and Second Series, are included, along with many of his other essays, some of which are difficult to find but which are nevertheless extremely valuable for the typical power of their insight into man’s spiritual relation with himself, nature and God. Mary Oliver said of Emerson that his certainty that we are "spirits that have descended into our bodies" never wavered. The Buddha said the same of all sentient beings; and for Jane Roberts/Seth and don Juan Matus (see below), the entire universe, sentient and non-sentient, physical and non-physical, is alive with consciousness. It could also be said, of Emerson and the other writers collected here, that their certainty of other aspects of reality never wavered: that the universe is an emanation from a spiritual dimension, that this reality or energy pervades everything and yet is separate from any of its manifestations, that you can know it by looking within or by seeing it everywhere, and that among its essential nature are awareness or consciousness, love, goodness, freedom, creativity, eternity (or to use the Dalai Lama’s suggestive phrase borrowed from his tradition, “beginningless time”), beauty ("the form under which the intellect prefers to study the world” —Emerson), and perhaps most descriptive of all, desire in its deepest sense, an aspect of reality so maligned by the Buddhists in their narrow use of the term. The individuals represented here stress that this reality can be described like this in an analytic or intellectual way, but that the reality itself is beyond description and must be personally experienced. "Beauty, Goodness, Splendour, Love, all those shining words which exhilarate the soul, are but the names of aspects of qualities picked out by human intuition as characteristic of this intense and eternal Life in which is the life of men"—Evelyn Underhill According to Jane Roberts, we can experience this greater reality within us or our "Source Self" by experiencing the present moment as fully as possible, and by "momentarily [turning our] attention away from the constant activity that is taking place—turn off the physical sense as it were [easier said than done!—my comment]—and switch [our] attention to those events that have escaped [us] earlier." For many of these authors, the dream state provides us with the best example of the basic nature of reality, where love, purpose, belief and intent form perhaps more immediately and obviously the reality that we perceive. "The dream state can be used...as a psychological or psychic platform to view other realities, and to glimpse the inner mechanics by which nonphysical events become actualized in your world"(Jane Roberts). You can find a brilliant discussion of the nature of reality as it is perceived by the great western mystics in Evelyn Underhill’s (1875-1941) Mysticism. It is a true literary and spiritual gem. Not included here are the works by the great contemporary writers on spiritual reality, Carlos Castaneda (1925-1998), who documented the teachings of Don Juan Matus, who expressed the spiritual traditions of ancient Mexico; and the works by the 20th c. American writer and mystic (although she would likely cringe at the term), Jane Roberts (1929-1984), who automatically dictated, without correction, the works by “the energy-essence personality,” as he characterized himself, called Seth in a trance state. For Jane Roberts/Seth, all dimensions of all realities, physical and non-physical, are composed of “god stuff,” an energy that is both conscious and limitless, just as the seers of the Upanishads 3000 years before her characterized this energy—Brahman—as Sat-Chit-Ananda: Existence, Consciousness, Bliss. These latter works are not included because they are currently under copyright, but they are readily available. Castaneda’s works in order of publication, are: The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, A Separate Reality, Journey to Ixtlan, Tales of Power, The Second Ring of Power, Eagle's Gift, Fire from Within, Power of Silence, The Art of Dreaming, The Active Side of Infinity, The Wheel of Time: The Shamans of Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and The Universe, The Witch's Dream: A Healer's Way of Knowledge. The major works of Jane Roberts include The Seth Material, Seth Speaks, The Nature of Personal Reality, The Nature of the Psyche, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, and The Unknown Reality among others (a limited number of Jane Roberts’ works are available at Amazon.com, but all of her works are available at, for example, http://www.sethcenter.com/). I hope that these texts bring you as much pleasure and understanding as they have me.
A final note on reading, in which you will read things you already know, but this is my blog so I am going to say it anyway, partly to clarify the ideas for myself. All of these great works bear re-reading. I have found that I read a work, and then a few months later read it again or a part of it and see it in the light of knowledge gained from my subsequent reading. That is one thing. Another thing I find fascinating is the parallels that run through these texts, from the most ancient to the most modern. Think of the concepts of Atman and Brahman in the ancient Indian texts; Plato's concept of the Realm of Ideas; Plotinus idea of three hypostases, the One, the Intellect, and the Soul; Emerson's Over-Soul and of the spiritual aspect of Nature; Jane Roberts' Framework 2, which is not included here (see below), to mention just the broad frameworks that have been used by these authors to discuss what they felt to be the real reality. The parallels are endless and include such ideas, for example, as love and creativity being at the heart of the fabric of existence. One trick I have taught myself is to use my imagination in the interpretation of the concepts and ideas used by these authors, always asking myself if by such and such a concept the author might have meant something that another discussed. This flexibility in interpretation has helped me to gain a richer understanding of the texts. Again, this kind of reading is recursive, not to mention enlightening. One final note on reading is something that Jane Roberts/Seth and Emerson, among others, have stressed: that reading is secondary experience. Just as reading about being poor is not the same as being poor, reading these authors' ideas about the spiritual, non-physical reality at the foundation of the one we normally experience is not the same thing as experiencing it for yourself. For that, these authors can be guides, as they say, but they cannot have the experience for us. This is the reason that all of them stress meditation or contemplation (parallels again)—that the truth can only be found within us (Jesus, Tolstoy, and everybody else), and even then, given the basic open-ended, creative nature of reality, our discovery of it will be personal and, if we are to believe what some of these authors say about the subjective nature of reality (in line with the most creative aspects of modern physics), our discovery of reality will always, to an extent, alter it and our perception of it. We will let Jane Roberts have the last word: "There are no limitations or boundaries to the self."
Thank you for visiting the site, and if you actually read this note, thank you for reading this far! If you are attracted to some of these works in particular, you may want to investigate other translations.
Bruce Leeds, Ph.D. (the picture above is of me and my dog Sophia—her mother was rescued from a certain slow death in Thailand and a few days later, Sophia was born!)
Contents
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2009
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October
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- RUYSBROECK: THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL MARRIAG...
- DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE: DIVINE NAMES, MYSTIC THE...
- ST. FRANCIS: THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS
- THOMAS A KEMPIS: THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
- BOEHME: OF TRUE REPENTENCE, OF REGENERATION, OF TR...
- BROTHER LAWRENCE: THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD
- ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS; ASCENT OF MOUNT CARMEL
- ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS: DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
- ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS: A SPIRITUAL CANTICLE OF THE...
- DANTE: DIVINE COMEDY (COMPLETE)
- ECKHART: SERMONS
- FOUR GOSPELS: MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, JOHN
- UNDERHILL: MYSTICISM, PART ONE, THE MYSTIC FACT
- UNDERHILL: MYSTICISM, PART TWO, THE MYSTIC WAY
- ANONYMOUS: THEOLOGIA GERMANICA
- ANONYMOUS: THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING
- HILTON: SCALE OF PERFECTION
- SAINT CATHERINE OF GENOA
- PLATO: SYMPOSIUM
- PLATO: MENO
- BOETHIUS: CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
- ANONYMOUS: THE AWAKENING OF FAITH IN THE MAHAYANA ...
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October
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