9770-07_LouvainStud_06-1_02 21-02-2007 09:09 Pagina 19 Louvain Studies 31 (2006) 19-41 doi: 10.2143/LS.31.1.2019377 © 2006 by Louvain Studies, all rights reserved The Significance of Ruusbroec’s Mystical Theology Bernard McGinn Abstract. — This essay seeks to evaluate the impact of the thought of Jan van Ruusbroec (1293-1381) in the history of Western Christian mysticism. Like all mystics, Ruusbroec was shaped by both the long mystical tradition, as well as by the historical context in which he found himself. A survey of three important aspects of this context is followed by an analysis of four essential themes of Ruusbroec’s mystical theology: the proper understanding of mystical union; the role of the Trinity; essential love; and the “common life.” The essay concludes with a brief sketch of major moments in the reception of Ruusbroec’s writings down through the seven- teenth century and some reflections on his lasting significance. The conception of mysticism as a form of private, even solipsistic, religious experience, largely of a paranormal nature and at least implic- itly in conflict with the institutional and doctrinal aspects of established religion is now mostly a thing of the past. Recent scholarship on mysti- cism in Christianity and in the world religions has shown how deeply bound the mystical element is to the other strands of religion. The mys- tical aspect of the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam emerges ever more strongly as a part of these traditions, that is, what has been handed on by generations of believers through teaching and prac- tice, both oral and written. In Christianity the special contact with the presence of God attained in mystical consciousness, while deeply per- sonal, is no less ecclesial, that is, it is mediated by the mystic’s location within the church, especially through the grace given in the liturgy and sacraments. It has its most potent effect by taking its place in the chain of tradition. Scripture and tradition are essential mediators of the mys- tical life as a process of attaining the deeper and transformative aware- ness of God that is the essence of Christian mysticism. Jan van Ruusbroec’s mystical teaching is a good illustration of the fundamentally ecclesial nature of mysticism, both in terms of its for- mation and its subsequent impact on the life of the church. While rich new mines of information about many of aspects of the Dutch canon’s 9770-07_LouvainStud_06-1_02 21-02-2007 09:09 Pagina 20 20 BERNARD MCGINN influence continue to be explored, ones that will doubtless enrich sub- sequent research, my purpose is somewhat different.1 I will not try to present any new research on Ruusbroec’s sources, nor will I attempt a detailed presentation of his impact on later mystical teaching. Rather, I will step back from the details, important as they are, to take a long- range view of the great Flemish mystic, not unlike the kind of “history of structure” practiced so brilliantly by Fernand Braudel. Braudel described this as the temporal plane of the “history of groups or group- ings … with slow but perceptible rhythms,” that is, the history of the “long-term realities.”2 To clarify my argument about the long-term sig- nificance of Ruusbroec, I will consider his impact under three headings: first, the context of late-medieval mysticism that helped shape his think- ing, directly and indirectly; second, the essential content of his mystical teaching; and third, some important consequences of his teaching. A brief consideration of these three areas may help us begin the address the question: What difference did Ruusbroec make in the history of the Western mystical tradition? I. Context Let us start from the fact that Ruusbroec’s teaching is found only in the vernacular. A commonplace, surely, but an instructive one, because it is only within the past few decades that investigators have begun to recognize that during the Middle Ages the intellectus fidei of theology came to expression in three large modes or families – the scholastic mode, the monastic mode, and the vernacular mode.3 For 1. The original version of this paper was prepared for the International Conference “Ruusbroec in Babel? Translation and Appropriation of Mystical Texts from the Middle Ages to the Present,” sponsored by the University of Antwerp and the Lessius Hogeschool, held in Antwerp on 22-23 September, 2006. I wish to thank the organizers of the Con- ference and the many participants, whose papers and comments have been helpful in my revisions of the original text. I especially thank Prof. Terrence Merrigan for his insightful response to the paper. Given the primarily historical nature of this essay, however, I have decided that this is not the venue to try to respond to his reflections on how aspects of Ruusbroec’s thought may be of use in contemporary theological discussion. 2. Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) 1:16, 20-21. 3. For more on vernacular theology, see Bernard McGinn, “Introduction,” in Mei- ster: Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics, ed. Bernard McGinn (New York: Continuum, 1994) 1-17. Other recent considerations of vernacular theology include Nicholas Wat- son, “Visions of Inclusion: Universal Salvation and Vernacular Theology in Pre-Refor- mation England,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27 (1997) 145-187; and 9770-07_LouvainStud_06-1_02 21-02-2007 09:09 Pagina 21 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RUUSBROEC’S MYSTICAL THEOLOGY 21 about a century (ca. 1840-1940) the investigation of medieval theology recognized only one form of “real” theology, the scholastic. In the mid- dle of the past century the pioneering work of Etienne Gilson, his stu- dent Jean Leclercq, and others revealed the distinctive character of monastic theology. The notion of a vernacular theology of the Middle Ages, hinted at by a few early investigators, such as Christopher Daw- son,4 has recently emerged as the third major mode of theology during the medieval period. Vernacular theology differs from the scholastic and the monastic modes, not only in its linguistic expression in the devel- oping vernacular literatures of late medieval Europe, but also in terms of the educational background of its practitioners and the genres employed. It is also the first form of theology in which women were able to find their own theological voice. Aside from a few pioneering figures in the twelfth century, vernacular theology came into its own in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Much of this vernacular theological writing concentrated on mysticism, but moral theology, cos- mology, and eschatology also appeared. In terms of achievement, one may well say that the fourteenth century saw the apogee of vernacular theology. In England, this was the “Golden Age” of English mysticism, as well as of that great vernacular theological poem, “Piers Plowman.” In Germany, the first three decades of the century witnessed Meister Eckhart’s preaching, and the last seven saw a flood of mystical teaching and preaching in the vernacular, both among Eckhart’s followers and in other traditions. Italy was graced with the towering figure of Catherine of Siena. In the Low Countries the fourteenth century was the age of Ruusbroec and his followers, both in the Groenendaal community and in the early stages of the devotio moderna. During the fourteenth century the major output of mystical litera- ture shifted away from Latin to the vernacular. Ruusbroec’s contemporary Richard Rolle, who probably received an equivalent education, was one of the last mystics to write equally in both Latin and the vernacular. By the late fourteenth century, the English clerics Walter Hilton and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, both perfectly capable of composing in Latin (Hilton did at times), had switched to English. In Germany, the scholastically-trained John Tauler never wrote in Latin; Henry Suso, a gifted stylist in both Latin and Middle High German, composed only Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) 294-304. 4. Christopher Dawson, Religion and the Rise of Western Culture (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957) 219. This book was based upon the Gifford Lectures that Dawson gave in 1948-49. 9770-07_LouvainStud_06-1_02 21-02-2007 09:09 Pagina 22 22 BERNARD MCGINN one Latin treatise, a revised version of a vernacular work. Although this text, the Horologium Sapientiae, was a bestseller among late medieval mys- tical works (second in number of manuscripts and translations only to the De imitatione Christi), Suso’s preference for the vernacular was significant. The triumph of vernacular theology was doubtless tied to the emergence of a wide audience, both in the upper and middle classes, avid for spiri- tual reading, but there were other factors at work too. The three modes of mediaeval theology had complex interrelation- ships, mutual conversations, that put the lie to any simple oppositional model. Bernard of Clairvaux opposed Peter Abelard, but he was also a correspondent and admirer of other early scholastic masters, such as Peter Lombard. Many of the thirteenth-century female vernacular theologians, such as Mechthild of Magdeburg, were aided by learned Dominicans in setting down and disseminating their message. The conversation between men and women that characterized vernacular theology is also evident in the case of Ruusbroec, who composed four texts for the Poor Clare of Brussels, Margriet van Meerbeke. There was also a conversation between the Latin of the international clerical class and the developing vernacu- lars. This conversation began in the late twelfth century when Bernard’s Sermones super Cantica were translated into French.