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The Spiritual Espousals Classics of the Contemplative Life

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The Spiritual Espousals Classics of the Contemplative Life The Leonard Library Wpdiltt College Toronto Shelf No. .... Register No THE SPIRITUAL ESPOUSALS CLASSICS OF THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE General Editor E. ALLISON PEERS BERNARDINO BE LAREDO: The Accent of Mount Sion, being the third book of the treatise of that name translated with an introduction and notes by E. Allison Peers. WALTER HILTON: The Goad of Love, an unpublished translation of the Stimulus Amoris formerly attributed to St. Bonaventura, now edited from MSS. by Clare Kirch- berger. HENRY suso: Little Book of Eternal Wisdom and Little Book of Truth, edited by James M. Clark. ST. BERNARD On the Canticles, translated with an intro duction and notes the Rev. by J. R. Wingfield Digby, s.j. BLESSED JAN VAN RUYSBROEK: The Spiritual Espousals, translated from the Dutch with an introduction by Eric Colledge. BLESSED JAN VAN RUYSBROEK THE SPIRITUAL ESPOUSALS translatedfrom the Dutch with an introduction by ERIC COLLEDGE FABER AND FABER LTD 24 Russell Square London First published in mcmlii by Faber and Faber Limited 24 Russell Square, London, W.C>\ Made and printed in Great Britain by William Clowes and Sons, Limited London and Beetles All rights reserved To CHARLES MULCAHY CONTENTS Translator s Note page j Introduction 9 The Prologue 43 Book I. THE ACTIVE LIFE 45 Book II. THE LIFE OF YEARNING FOR GOD 85 Book III. THE LIFE OF CONTEMPLATION OF GOD 177 Bibliography 191 Index 193 TRANSLATOR S NOTE MY translation of The Spiritual Espousals has been made from the text to be found in Vol. I of Werken (for fuller information concerning this and other works cited in the Introduction, see the Bibliography), the critical edition of all Ruysbroek s works published to mark the 55oth anniversary of his death. I have followed this excellent edition in most cases in its punctuation and paragraphing, and I have also translated its modern Dutch chapter-titles, which, although they do not seem to be Ruysbroek s own, derive from several of the best medieval Dutch and Latin manuscripts. I have incurred debts to many scholars, and first I should acknowledge the work of two anonymous Englishmen of the 1 5th century, probably both Carthusians, the translator of The Treatise of Perfection of the Sons of God and the author- compiler of The Chastising of God s Children, much of which second work is taken direct from some Latin version of the Espousals. It was they who first introduced me to Ruysbroek, and showed me how well he repays a translator s pains. Among the living, I have to thank Monsignor R. A. Knox, the Rev. Michael Egan, S.J., and the Rev. Vincent Wilkin, S.J., all of whom have given me valuable counsel. My colleague Professor E. Allison Peers, the general editor of this series, has put all his great knowledge and experience most generously at my disposal. And the labours and dilemmas inseparable from the preparation of such a book as this have been lessened for me by my mother s expert help and sound advice. JAN VAN RUYSBROEK born in South Brabant 1293 ordained priest c. 1317 retired from secular life 1343 professed as Augustinian 1351 died 2 December 1381 beatified 1908 INTRODUCTION FEW writers, even among the saints, have told us as little of themselves as Blessed Jan van Ruysbroek. Everything that he wrote, and he was a copious writer, conveys to us a warm, lively, arresting personality; but he is at scrupulous pains to avoid telling us who or what he was. Still more, he is at pains not to claim for himself any merit or pre-eminence as a contemplative. His books are all works of instruction in the contemplative life, and he is never tired of insisting that this life can be achieved only if man seek God Himself alone, and not in or through His creatures; and this is given practical application in his writings, in which he is plainly concerned not to offer, to those who seek guidance from them, any of the distractions or hindrances to enlightenment which a display of his personality might afford. The circle of devoted friends which grew around him in his own priory of Groenendael outside Brussels, and in other religious houses of the Low Countries, produced several biographers whose records enable us to measure the difference between the impression which his treatises give, not, it is true, of frigidity or inhumanity, but of withdrawal, and the seductive powers of his conversation and manners. But nothing which these biographers have written suggests the intractability or the contentiousness which are too often the marks of the controversial theologian. His life, as well as his works, was marked by a humility and a serenity which must have cost much to achieve and maintain for his ; writings make it plain that in his own lifetime, as thereafter, he was attacked as a teacher of false doctrine. The Church of which he lived and died a faithful son, in beatifying him, gave at last her guarantee that he did not teach heresy; but it is not uncommon, even today, to find the old 9 THE SPIRITUAL ESPOUSALS charges resurrected, that Ruysbroek held views and employed language which are almost indistinguishable from those of Pantheists and Quietists. Such charges are usually reinforced by quotations from The Spiritual Espousals. If we are to interpret the Espousals in the sense which Ruysbroek intended, and if we are not similarly to misunder stand and calumniate him, we must know more of him and of the times for which he wrote than can be learned from his It is that is works. true there a vital relationship between his doctrine and the heresies of which he has been accused; but this relationship is that of the completed picture to the scattered, disjointed, meaningless and misleading fragments of a jigsaw puzzle. In minimis, Ruysbroek s doctrine reflects a often to be in principle very observed the history of Christianity, that it is the perversions of truth which call forth the ultimate and authoritative definition of truth. was born in Ruysbroek, who 1293, had already spent many in Brussels as a secular years priest, serving the collegiate church of St. Gudule in a humble office, and devoting himself to prayer, contemplation, study and the cure of souls, when, some before exact years 1344 (no date is possible), he first became and that prominent, through the vigorous part he took in the heretical attacking doctrines which had been spread by the female of apostle seraphic love , Bloemardinne. She is a somewhat ambiguous figure among the many heretics, male and female, who flourished in the Low Countries towards the close of the Middle Ages, but we have some evidence on which to base our conjectures as to the exact nature of the doctrines Ruysbroek felt himself called to denounce.* It is however significant that, as is so often the case with such 1 The details of s life Ruysbroek given here are principally derived from the second of D. A. essay Stracke, S.J., chapter iv of Leven (see the for this and other Bibliography full titles): and in this essay will also be found an excellent critical examination of the sources for the Ruysbroek biographical writings. 3 J. Van has contributed Mierlo, S.J., two articles, B6gardisme and Bloemardinne , to the Dictionnaire d histoire et de geographic ecclesiastiqites, to which I am much indebted for the account here, as to Mgr. Knox s which I shall Enthusiasm, have frequent occasion to quote. 10 INTRODUCTION heretical movements, no contemporary documents survive, although Pomerius, the Groenendael Augustinian who com piled the first authoritative biography of Ruysbroek, writing in the second decade of the fifteenth century, says that he has seen her books himself and can testify to their pernicious nature. Furthermore, we have no work of Ruysbroek which manifestly is the immediate outcome of his campaign against her: Stracke suggests that probably he confined himself to preaching to combat her influence, which had become so great as to be an open scandal in Brussels; but if Stracke s conjecture is correct, a further reason may well be that Ruysbroek saw the dangers that could attend a documentation of her beliefs which might gain circulation and so vitiate the success which, it would seem, his mission enjoyed. Pomerius, who is thus our principal source of knowledge of Bloemardinne, tells us that she taught and wrote of the the free liberty of the spirit and of seraphic nature of love ; for the rest, he merely describes the fame and powerful patronage she enjoyed in life, and the veneration accorded her after her death, which seems to have taken place before Ruysbroek began his campaign. Before we leave Pomerius account of her, however, we must notice one somewhat curious statement in it which has given rise to much controversy. He identifies Bloemardinne with her the of near-contemporary, mysterious Hadewijch , whom we know almost nothing except that she was the author of numerous poems, celebrating her adoration of the Redeemer, and often couched in the language of courtly love. This conflation, as he regards it, is absolutely rejected by Van Mierlo; and the curious reader must be referred to his article for the details of his highly ingenious theory that Pomerius, officially deputed to scrutinize Hadewijch s verses, was unable to distinguish between her use of erotic imagery to convey sentiments in themselves unexceptionable, and Bloemardinne s celebrations of seraphic love . There is no need to make this discussion of Ruysbroek s writings unduly involved, or to relate Van Mierlo s thesis to that other, made prominent in ii THE SPIRITUAL ESPOUSALS the recent years by M.
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