Ruusbroec's Mystical Vision in 'die Gheestelike Brulocht' Seen in the Light of 'minne' 9042937521, 9789042937529, 9789042937536

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Fiery Arrow

RUUSBROEC’S MYSTICAL VISION IN DIE GHEESTELIKE BRULOCHT SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF MINNE James A. WISEMAN, O.S.B.

PEETERS

Ruusbroec’s Mystical Vision in Die gheestelike brulocht Seen in the Light of minne

The Fiery Arrow Collection Editors: Hein Blommestijn and Jos Huls of Titus Brandsma Institute Advisory Board: Elizabeth Dreyer, Silver Spring, U.S.A. Christopher O’Donnell, Dublin, Ireland Helen Rolfson, Collegeville, U.S.A. V.F. Vineeth, Bangalore, India John Welch, Washington, U.S.A. The Fiery Arrow series aims at the publication of books which connect their readers with the legacy of great teachers of spirituality from the distant and more recent past. Readers are offered a language and conceptual framework which can lead them to a deepened understanding of the spiritual life. The treasures of the spiritual tradition form a veritable “school of love”, which is accessible to all who in contemplation desire to be touched by the fire of divine love. In 1270 A.D. Nicholas of France, former prior general of the Carmelites, wrote a letter bearing the title Fiery Arrow to his fellow brothers to urge them to call to mind again the fire of the beginning in which, in silence and solitude, they were consumed by the inescapable claim of the One. Based on the Carmelite tradition, this series seeks to share this spiritual legacy – which presents itself in a multiplicity of cultures and traditions – with all those who in a great variety of ways are in search of interior life and the fire of love. The series, which is grounded in scientific research, is aimed at a broad public interested in spirituality. The Titus Brandsma Institute is an academic center of research in spirituality founded in 1968 by the Catholic University of Nijmegen and the Carmelite Order. Titus Brandsma, who from 1923 on was a professor of philosophy and the history of mysticism, especially that of the Low Countries, died in 1942 as a martyr in the Nazi death camp of Dachau and was beatified in 1985. The Institute continues his research in spirituality and mysticism with a staff of assistants and in collaboration with other researchers. In addition to this and other series, the Institute publishes the international periodical Studies in Spirituality and the series Studies in Spirituality Supplement (Peeters, Louvain). Already published in this series: 1. K. Waaijman The Mystical Space of Carmel An Interpretation of the Carmelite Rule 2. E.A. Van den Goorbergh, T.H.Zweerman Light Shining Through a Veil On Saint Clare’s Letters to Saint Agnes of Prague 3. H. Blommestijn, J.Huls, K.Waaijman The Footprints of Love John of the Cross as Guide in the Wilderness 4. J.M. Malham By Fire into Light Four Catholic Martyrs of the Nazi Camps 5. C. Dölle Encountering God in the Abyss Titus Brandsma’s Spiritual Journey 6. F. Maas Spirituality as Insight Mystical Texts and Theological Reflection 7. C. Dumont As a Consuming Fire, Wisdom 8. T.H. Zweerman, E.A.C. Van den Goorbergh Saint Francis of Assisi: A Guide for our Times His Biblical Spirituality 9. J. Huls The Minne-Journey Beatrice of Nazareth’s “Seven Ways of Minne”. Mystical Process and Mystagogical Implications 10. I. Brandsma In Search of Living Water Essays on the Mystical Heritage of the Netherlands 11. C. Dumont Contemplate the Gentleness of God

RUUSBROEC’S MYSTICAL VISION IN DIE GHEESTELIKE BRULOCHT SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF MINNE by James A. WISEMAN

PEETERS

LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT 2018

A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-90-429-3752-9 eISBN 978-90-429-3753-6 D/2018/0602/93 ©2018 – Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means without permission from the publisher.

Table of Contents FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

VII

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IX

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

PART ONE Minne within the Godhead and its Flowing Forth to all Creation CHAPTER ONE: Minne in the Inner Life of the Trinity . . . . . . .

13

CHAPTER TWO: The Flowing Forth of God’s Minne toward Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

PART TWO Our Response to Minne through our Minlijc Return to the Godhead in the “Active,” “Interior,” and “Contemplative” Lives CHAPTER THREE: Minne in “the Active Life” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

CHAPTER FOUR: Minne in “the Interior Life” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63

CHAPTER FIVE:

Minne in “the Contemplative Life” . . . . . . . . . .

120

PART THREE A Concluding Synthesis CHAPTER SIX:

Synthesizing Our Findings: Minne in the Brulocht 145

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

161

Foreword Jan van Ruusbroec’s Die gheestelike brulocht (The Spiritual Espousals) is by far the greatest among the rich harvest of Flemish mystical writings in the 14th century. Practically all spiritual writers of the time have studied, imitated or complemented it. I have been acquainted with it since the time when, several decades ago, I fell in with a group of weekly readers. Nothing equals or surpasses Ruusbroec, with the possible exception of some of Eckhart’s best pages. Minne is the central theme of Abbot Wiseman’s treatise. Ruusbroec deals with it not in any personal way, as Hadewych did, but as the essence of Christian theology. In this respect he differs from Eckhart. He draws no sharp distinction between an ordinary Christian life and a mystical one. The mystical life parallels the working life even at the highest steps of contemplation. Therein lies the success of this work over the centuries. People have studied it, copied it, and borrowed from it. Congregations of men and women have taken it as the basis of their institutes. Without his writings there would have been no “Brethren of the Common Life.” Ruusbroec’s work has been at the center of all devotion in the Low Countries, North and South. Abbot Wiseman’s study wisely avoids unnecessary controversies that, later, came to surround Ruusbroec’s work. Ruusbroec’s place is not at the noisy centre, but at the top. One who begins to study him will stay with him. This penetrating analysis of The Spiritual Espousals will proudly enhance the reputation of this excellent series, Fiery Arrow. Louis Dupré

Preface In these times when there is not only considerable interest in Eastern religions on the part of persons living in the Western world, but also a growing concern to reappropriate the riches of the Western religious tradition itself, it is to be expected that one medieval Christian mystic to whom more and more attention will be given is Jan van Ruusbroec. Those whose academic field is spirituality are generally agreed that Ruusbroec was not only the most important of the medieval Flemish mystics, but also one of the finest mystical writers in the entire Christian tradition. As the respected French historian of spirituality, Louis Cognet, has written, “The power and coherence of [Ruusbroec’s] synthesis, which unites in an unbroken line the humblest ascetic strivings and the highest manifestations of the theopathic state, joined to the richness of his experience and to his literary genius – all this makes his work one of the most exceptional achievements that Western mysticism has produced.”1 And the German theologian Bernhard Fraling, who has published two works on Ruusbroec, writes that he, “for the first time in the whole realm of Germanic mysticism, presented a coherent synthesis … . In details Ruusbroec was often not original; much stemmed from the mystical tradition of the Church. But his achievement was the synthesis, which grew out of the intuitive power of his view of the whole.”2 The main purpose of the present work is to make a contribution toward a clearer understanding of Ruusbroec’s doctrine by providing a careful study of the meaning of one central term as it appears in the treatise generally considered Ruusbroec’s masterpiece. The treatise is  Louis Cognet, Introduction aux mystiques rhéno-flamands (Paris: Desclée, 1965), p. 281. 2  Bernhard Fraling, Der Mensch vor dem Geheimnis Gottes: Untersuchungen zur geistlichen Lehre des Jan van Ruusbroec (Würzburg: Echter-Verlag, 1967), p. 37. 1

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Die gheestelike brulocht, commonly rendered in English as The Spiritual Espousals or The Spiritual Marriage and sometimes, from a longer title found in some manuscripts, The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage; the term is minne, generally rendered in English as “love,” concerning which one scholar, Professor Fraling, has gone so far as to say that in the mystic’s various uses of the terminology of minne “the entire mystical teaching of Ruusbroec is mirrored.”3 Before beginning this study of Ruusbroec’s own work, it should be noted that minne was likewise a frequently used term in the writings of other Flemish and German mystics of the Middle Ages. East of the Rhine, Mechtilde of Magdeburg (1207-1282) used the term frequently in The Flowing Light of the Godhead, writing at one point that “this book has been begun in minne and will end in minne.”4 As one twentiethcentury scholar has observed, “The characteristic aspect of the poetry of Mechtilde of Magdeburg is precisely the way she conjoins elements from the rich imagery of the Song of Songs with the imagery of secular love poetry [Minnesang].”5 In the Low Countries, a contemporary of Mechtilde was Beatrice of Nazareth, so called because she was a nun of the Cistercian abbey of Nazareth, near the town of Lier. She wrote in Middle Dutch an autobiography of which the greatest part has come down to us only in a Latin translation, but of which one section has been preserved in a manuscript written in her own language. This section is a relatively self-contained treatise entitled Seven manieren van minne (Seven Ways of minne), in which Beatrice treats such themes as the development of the “natural gifts of the soul” (such as intellectual perspicacity and interior peace), the love of God for his own sake, the passive resting in God of a soul caught up in love of him, and the “storm of minne” which at times rages in the soul. In the opinion of Stephanus Axters, who has written more than any other author on the history of Flemish spirituality, one could 3  Bernhard Fraling, Mystik und Geschichte: Das “ghemeyne leven” in der Lehre des Jan van Ruusbroec (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1974), p. 180. 4  Cited by Grete Lüers, Die Sprache der deutschen Mystik des Mittelalters im Werke der Mechthild von Magdeburg (Munich: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag, 1926; reprint ed., Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966), p. 74. 5  Ibid., p. 72.

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hardly overemphasize the importance of Beatrice’s treatise for the spirituality of the Low Countries in following centuries, for she thereby “prepared the way for a speculative mysticism which would, soon thereafter, attain some of its finest triumphs both in Brabant and east of the Rhine.”6 Among Ruusbroec’s predecessors mention must also be made of the thirteenth-century beguine Hadewijch of Antwerp, for in her writings, too, references to minne are frequent and central. Tanis Guest, who has published the results of much study of the meaning of minne in Hadewijch’s poetry (which this mystic wrote in addition to letters of spiritual instruction), concludes: Minne in its basic meaning is Hadewijch’s name for the all-powerful being she adored, probably best understood as God in His aspect of Love; but it is a concept of many and varied nuances, under which may be subsumed her own relationship with that being, and also herself both as lover and beloved of it. One or more of these meanings may be present, consciously or unconsciously, in any individual occurrence of the word; and although in most cases the poet was doubtless aware of the distinction between them, this may not always be so. She was … totally bound up in a total experience of which Minne, her Beloved, was an integral part, and not an outside existence.7

What is here said of minne in Hadewijch – that it is a term of many and varied nuances – is likewise true of minne in Ruusbroec, who, as Axters has shown in considerable detail, was certainly influenced by the writings of Hadewijch.8 One useful approach for comprehending the full 6  Stephanus Axters, O.P., La spiritualité des Pays-Bas: L’évolution d’une doctrine mystique, Bibliotheca Mechliniensis, series 2, fasc. 1 (Louvain: E. Nauwelaerts and Paris: J. Vrin, 1948), p. 31. See also Jos Huls, The Minne-Journey: Beatrice of Nazareth’s “Seven Ways of Minne”. Mystical Process and Mystagogical Implications (Leuven: Peeters, 2013). A highly acclaimed French translation of Beatrice’s treatise has been done by J.-B. M. Porion: Hadewych, Lettres spirituelles; Béatrice de Nazareth, Sept degrés d’amour (Geneva: C. Martingay, 1972). 7  Tanis M. Guest, Some Aspects of Hadewijch’s Poetic Form in the ‘Strofische Gedichten’, Bibliotheca Neerlandica extra Muros, no. 3 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975), p. 14. 8  Stephanus Axters, O.P., Geschiedenis van de vroomheid in de Nederlanden, 4 vols. (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1950-60), 2: 270-72.

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significance of minne for Ruusbroec is to study it in its distinction from and relationship to two other terms, liefde and karitate, which, like minne, could also be translated into English by the one term “love.” To avoid confusion, these three terms will accordingly be left in their original, Middle Dutch form in quotations from Ruusbroec’s text, which will appear in the present writer’s own English translation from the edition published by the Ruusbroecgenootschap in 1944.9 Likewise given in the original Dutch will be adjectival, adverbial, and related substantival forms of these three nouns. These forms, together with their literal English translations, are the following: minnere, commonly rendered as “lover” or “one who loves”; minnende, a participial form used both adjectively and substantively (“loving” or “one who loves”); gheminde, a passive participial form used both adjectively and substantively (“beloved”); minlijc, an adjective and adverb which could be translated as “lovable” or “loving” and, adverbially, as “lovingly”; minlijcst, its superlative form; liefelijc, the similarly formed adjective from liefde, together with the superlative form liefst; and lief, a noun referring to a person toward whom one has liefde. The only verb related to any of these nouns and used by Ruusbroec in the Brulocht is minnen. Because the forms of the different tenses and persons of this verb are so varied and therefore possibly confusing to a reader not acquainted with Middle Dutch, this verb will be rendered in English in the translated quotations from Ruusbroec, but the original form will be given in parentheses. Likewise, the Middle Dutch form of all direct quotations from Ruusbroec will be provided, either in the footnotes for short quotations within the body of the text, or in parallel columns in the case of longer “block quotations.” The rather large number of lengthy quotations was judged necessary so that individual uses of the term minne could be seen in their context. It is hoped that this will be especially helpful for readers not otherwise familiar with the Brulocht.  Jan van Ruusbroec, Werken, vol. 1: Het rijcke der ghelieven & Die gheestelike brulocht, ed. J. B. Poukens, S.J. & L. Reypens, S.J., 2nd ed., rev. (Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 1944), pp. 101-249. The Ruusbroecgenootschap, of which these two editors plus D. A. Stracke and Jozef Van Mierlo were founders, is a society begun in Antwerp in the twentieth century for the purpose of scholarly research into the history of Low Countries spirituality. In addition to the publication of original texts and of studies about them, the society publishes a quarterly journal, Ons Geestelijk Erf (Our Spiritual Heritage). 9

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As a means of ordering the various parts of this study, one of the most characteristic of Ruusbroec’s images has been chosen, that of God as a flowing and ebbing sea. Sometimes Ruusbroec uses this image apart from any direct reference to minne, but the close connection between that image and minne can be clearly seen in the following passage from the Brulocht: This flowing forth of God constantly demands a flowing back again, for God is a flowing, ebbing sea which ceaselessly flows into all his gheminde, according to each one’s need and merits. And he ebbs back again with all who have received his gifts in heaven and on earth, with all that they are and are capable of. And of some persons he demands more than they can accomplish, for he reveals himself to be very rich and generous and endlessly good, and in this revelation he asks for minne and homage according to his worth. For God wishes to be loved (ghemint sijn) by us according to his excellence, and all spirits fail in this, and thus minne comes to exist without mode or manner. For they do not know how to accomplish this or bring it about, for the minne of all spirits is finite. And for this reason minne constantly commences again from the beginning so that God might be loved (ghemint worde) according to his demand and their desire.10

Dit vloeyen Gods eyschet altoes een wedervloeyen; want God es eene vloeyende ebbende zee die zonder onderlaet vloeyt in alle sine gheminde, na elcs behoeven ende weerde. Ende Hi es weder-ebbende alle die ghegavet sijn in hemel ende in eerde met al dat si hebben ende vermoghen. Ende selcken eyschet Hi meer dan si gheleysten connen. Want Hi toent Hem soe rijcke ende soe milde, ende soe grondeloes goet, ende in desen toene eyschet hi minne ende eere na sijn weerde. Want God wilt van ons ghemint sijn na sine edelheit, ende hier-inne faelgeren alle gheeste, ende aldus wert de minne sonder wise ende zonder maniere. Want si en wetent hoe gheleisten noch toe-bringhen, want alre gheeste minne es ghemeten. Ende hier-omme wert de minne altoes vanden eerste begonnen, op-dat God ghemint worde na sinen eysch ende na hare begherte.

10

 Jan van Ruusbroec, Die gheestelike brulocht, bk. 2, p. 185, lines 9-23. Since all quotations from this treatise will be taken from the edition referred to in the previous footnote, future references will appear according to the following format: (Br., 2: 185, 9-23), where the first item gives an abbreviated form of the title of the treatise, the second indicates from which of the three “books” of Ruusbroec’s treatise the quotation is taken, the third indicates the page in the Ruusbroecgenootschap’s edition, and the fourth indicates the lines. 10

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In accordance with this image, the first chapter of the present study (which also includes a separate Introduction dealing with Ruusbroec’s life and works in general) will consider minne in the inner life of God, within the Trinity, which according to Ruusbroec is the source of this flow outward to all creation. The second chapter will treat the flowing forth itself, showing that this is essentially an effusion of God’s own minne; Christ’s love for mankind, described in different contexts as minne or as karitate, will receive particular emphasis in this chapter. Together, these two chapters will comprise part one of the study. The next three chapters will correspond to the three books of Ruusbroec’s treatise, each of which details one way or “life” by which a person can return or “flow back” to God. These ways are, respectively, the active life of external works (characteristic of beginners in the Christian life and called by Ruusbroec een werkende leven), the interior, exalted life of desiring or yearning for God (een innighe verhavene begheerlijcke leven), and the contemplative or “God-seeing” life (een godscouwende leven). The nature and interrelationship of these three ways or lives and the role of minne in each will be clarified in these three chapters, which will comprise part two of this study. A final sixth chapter (part three of the study) will synthesize the findings and contribution of the preceding analytic chapters.

Introduction The Paucity of Biographical Information about Ruusbroec Unlike his contemporary from across the Rhine, the German mystic Heinrich Suso, Jan van Ruusbroec did not include any strictly autobiographical information in his treatises. In the introductory remarks to his study of Ruusbroec’s life and character, D. A. Stracke of the Ruusbroecgenootschap observes that although this mystic was known and admired by a great many persons during his lifetime, when historical writing in the Low Countries was in full course of development, we nevertheless know less about him than about one or another Merovingian or Carolingian saint, the details of whose ancestry, earliest youth, education and religious conversion have come down to us. Stracke names eight or nine contemporaries who were with Ruusbroec either for long periods of time (being in the same religious community) or at least for occasional visits and some of whom were writers whose works have been in part preserved, yet notes that such persons “have revealed precious little about his life and character,” with the result that biographers of later generations have themselves been unable to provide all the information that could be desired.1 Even so, this introductory resume of Ruusbroec’s life and works would be quite incomplete if nothing were said about several of his contemporaries or near contemporaries as sources of our knowledge about the mystic.

1  D. A. Stracke, S.J., “Jan van Ruusbroec’s leven en karakter,” in Jan van Ruusbroec: Leven, Werken, ed. Ruusbroecgenootschap (Mechelen: Het Kompas, 1931; Amsterdam: De Spieghel, 1931), p. 68.

2

INTRODUCTION

Early Sources for the Biography of Ruusbroec One member of Ruusbroec’s community at Groenendaal who himself wrote a number of mystical treatises was “the good cook,” Brother Jan van Leeuwen (1295-1378). In addition to those writings, four eulogies (lofredenen), published toward the end of the nineteenth century by Willem de Vreese, have been attributed to him, though it is generally considered that he himself wrote only the first two of these.2 In any event, they do not provide much biographical information about Ruusbroec but rather sing his praises, as is indicated not only by the general designation lofredenen but also by the title of the first of these: “How Brother Jan, the First Cook at Groenendaal, Esteems and Praises the First Prior.” The first properly biographical account of which we have any knowledge was written by Jan Dirks van Schoonhoven, who entered Groenendaal in 1377 (four years before Ruusbroec’s death) and died in 1432. We know of this biography through the community’s necrology, which has the following entry for Ruusbroec himself: Anno Domini M. CCC. LXXXI obiit venerabilis pater Dominus Johannes de Rusbroeck, primus prior ac fundamentum huius monasterii. Huius sancti patris vitam gloriosam frater Johannes Theoderici de Scoenhovia veraci atque egregio stilo, utpote qui eumdem novit, vidit, subque ac cum ipso hic vixit, fideliter conscripsit.3

This vita, which would accordingly have been written sometime before the first edition of the necrology in the year 1410 or 1411, was, however, soon forgotten, apparently because of the existence of a much fuller biography written by Hendrik van den Bogaerde about a decade 2

 Willem de Vreese, ed., “Bijdragen tot de kennis van het leven en de werken van Jan van Ruusbroec: De lofredenen van Jan van Leeuwen, den kok van Groenendaal, op Jan van Ruusbroec,” Het Belfort 10, part 2 (1895): 169-81. These lofredenen and similar documents from the time of Ruusbroec, which were first published by de Vreese in numbers of Het Belfort in 1895 and 1896, were subsequently published under the same title, Bijdragen …, in a separate book (Ghent: Drukkerij A. Siffer, 1896). 3  Brussels, Bibliotheca Regia, ser. II, MS 155, fol. 118v, cited by the Bollandists in their editorial Introduction to Pomerius’s De origine monasterii Viridisvallis, in Analecta Bollandiana 4 (1885): 257. M. Dykmans S.J., Obituaire du monastère de Groenendael dans la Forêt de Soignes, Brussel, 1940: 315-316.

INTRODUCTION

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later. Nothing of Schoonhoven’s biography has come down to us except insofar as it would have served as a source for the later work. Bogaerde, more commonly known by the latinized form of his name, Henricus Pomerius, was, like Schoonhoven and Jan van Leeuwen, a member of the Groenendaal community. Born in 1382, he entered the community in 1421 and served in various capacities both there and in other Augustinian houses of the region until his death in 1469. Of Pomerius the Groenendaal necrology has the following to say: “Hic fuit magnus devotarius et multum speculativus. Unde scripsit plura opuscula, scilicet Promptuarium spiritualium editationum, Exercitium super Pater noster, Vitam Ruysbroech.”4 This life of Ruusbroec, together with a life of Jan van Leeuwen and other material relating to the early days of the community at Groenendaal, is contained in his work De origine monasterii Viridisvallis et de gestis patrum et fratrum in primordiali fervore ibidem degentium, published in its entirety by the Bollandists in 1895.5 This biography was the major source for all later accounts of Ruusbroec’s life, including the one prefixed to the Latin translation of all the mystic’s works by the Carthusian Laurentius Surius in the sixteenth century. Another helpful, though less extensive source of biographical information is the Prologue which the Carthusian Gheraert van Saintes, a contemporary of Ruusbroec, wrote for a collection of five of the latter’s treatises and which is based in large measure on Gheraert’s own conversations with Ruusbroec during a visit that the latter once made to the charterhouse at Herne, some six miles from Groenendaal. This Prologue was edited and published toward the end of the nineteenth century by de Vreese and has since appeared in French translation as well.6 It is, then, primarily on Pomerius and Gheraert that one must ultimately rely for any account of Ruusbroec’s life, whether that be, for example, the article which de Vreese himself wrote for the Belgian Biographie nationale, the account of Ruusbroec’s life and character which 4

 Cited ibid., p. 259.  Ibid., pp. 263-322. 6  de Vreese, ed., “Bijdragen tot de kennis van het leven en de werken van Jan van Ruusbroec: Die prologhe van her Gerardus,” Het Belfort 10, part 2 (1895): 6-20. French translation in Melline d’Asbeck, Documents relatifs à Ruysbroeck (Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, 1931), pp. 17-21. 5

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INTRODUCTION

Stracke wrote for Jan van Ruusbroec: Leven, Werken (a volume published by the Ruusbroecgenootschap in 1931 to commemorate the 550th anniversary of the mystic’s death), or the biographical resume which will make up the next part of the Introduction to this study. In the words of the Benedictine scholar H. Lindeman at the conclusion of his study of the sources for a biography of Ruusbroec, Pomerius remains our most important and, all things considered, a quite reliable source for Ruusbroec’s life. Scattered here and there [in other sources] are a few supplementary facts that can be added but which do not substantially change or augment the picture of Ruusbroec provided by Pomerius and Brother Gheraert. It seems to me that further searching of archives will bring to light a few more details, but it is not to be expected that such searching will ever give us Schoonhoven’s biography, which would be a most desirable resource for our knowledge of Ruusbroec.7

An Outline of Ruusbroec’s Life As would be expected in the case of someone about whom his contemporaries have left us relatively little information, there has been considerable debate among scholars concerning details of Ruusbroec’s life. There is, however, general agreement about the most important events and their dates, and it is within these limits of what is generally accepted among scholars that the following resumé of Ruusbroec’s life will stay. He was born in 1293 and in later life came to be known after the name of his village of origin, Ruusbroec (spelled Ruysbroeck in modern orthography), some five kilometers southwest of Brussels. Of his father we know nothing, indicating either that the father died while Jan was still a child or, possibly, that he was born out of wedlock. At the age of eleven, Jan left his native village and went to live with a relative, Jan Hinckaert, who was a canon of the collegiate church of St. Gudula in Brussels. For the next four years he was a pupil in Brussels, presumably pursuing the trivium at the school connected with the collegiate church; Pomerius writes that through such schooling Ruusbroec learned the 7  H. Lindeman, O.S.B., “De bronnen van Ruusbroec’s leven,” Jan van Ruusbroec: Leven, Werken, p. 59.

INTRODUCTION

5

“communia grammaticorum principia.”8 It seems that all further education was gotten largely on his own, though undoubtedly under the general direction of Hinckaert or other canons of St. Gudula. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1317, at the age of twenty-four, and spent the next twenty-six years as a vicar at the collegiate church. Of these years in Brussels Pomerius has little to say. He describes Ruusbroec as “quietus et tacitus, habitu despectus, sed cultus moribus,” and as seldom going out into the city inasmuch as he loved the quiet of contemplation more than external activity. One activity that Pomerius does recount at some length concerns Ruusbroec’s alleged attempts to oppose the heretical writings of a woman named Bloemardinne, who is said to have written many things “de spiritu libertatis et nefandissimo amore venereo.”9 However, recent research indicates that this was a mistake on Pomerius’s part and that the person known as Bloemardinne was a certain Heilwigis Bloemarts, who was not at all a heretic but rather a socially committed woman who had founded a home for the city’s elderly poor.10 In accordance with Pomerius’s description of Ruusbroec as quiet and retiring, it is not surprising that finally, after twenty-six years of priestly ministry at St. Gudula, Ruusbroec and two like-minded confreres left the collegiate church to lead a more solitary religious life at Groenendaal, “the green valley,” in the forest of Zoniënbosch, southeast of Brussels. Pomerius devotes several chapters to their decision to leave Brussels, pointing out above all the difficulty of praying the Liturgy of the Hours at St. Gudula, where there were not only the “strepitus et rumores” of seculars to contend with, but also disturbances from less recollected canons; of the latter, Pomerius singles out a certain Godefridus Kerreken, who “eos saepissime in suis exercitiis perturbaret (habuit nimirum idem ipse vocem tubalem, rudem et dissonam)”!11 And so one day the canon Vrank van Coudenberghe approached Hinckaert and suggested that if ever they were to find a way of satisfying their religious longings more  Anal. Boll. 4 (1885): 273.  Ibid., p. 286. 10  See John Arblaster and Rob Faesen, “John of Ruusbroec’s Life and Works,” in A Companion to John of Ruusbroec (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014), p. 53. 11  Anal. Boll. 4 (1885): 275. 8 9

6

INTRODUCTION

fully, it would be necessary to move to some more solitary place, “in quo libere et absque scrupulo, juxta ordinis dignitatem, horas quiete solvere, devotioni vacare et conscientiis nostris juxta votorum exigentiam possimus fideliter providere.”12 Ruusbroec was fully in accord with this suggestion. The place they chose was the aforementioned Groenendaal, where a succession of hermits had been living since 1304. The hermit living there in 1343 was a certain Lambert, who willingly agreed to move to a different location, while the duke of Brabant, approached by Coudenberghe, agreed to give the three men the site and some surrounding property provided that they built a house for five religious, at least two of whom would always be priests. This grant of land took place on Wednesday of Easter Week in 1343, and with the consent of the bishop of Cambrai, in whose territory Groenendaal lay, the three men began constructing a chapel, which was consecrated by the bishop on March 17 of the following year. While the new location was in many respects more satisfactory than St. Gudula, some problems remained. Certain other persons, both clergy and lay, considered it most improper that these men, who by now had been joined by Jan van Leeuwen, should be living as religious without belonging to any religious order or wearing a religious habit. There was also the difficulty that huntsmen friends of the duke of Brabant would often use the site as a place of rest and refreshment during their hunts. Descending on the spot together with their hunting dogs, they made Groenendaal seem “non locus solitariae devotionis, sed potius nefariae venationis.”13 For these reasons the group, with the encouragement of the bishop of Cambrai, decided to become Canons Regular of St. Augustine, “ut sic … ipsi plene statutis et libertatibus Ecclesiae munirentur et stabilirentur.”14 The bishop clothed them in the habit on March 10, 1349, and on the next day appointed Coudenberghe the superior (“provost”), Ruusbroec serving under him as the prior. It was in this setting that Ruusbroec spent the remaining thirty-two years of his life. Outwardly these years were quite uneventful. Pomerius 12

 Ibid., p. 276.  Ibid., p. 278. 14  Ibid. 13

INTRODUCTION

7

makes a point of how good an example Ruusbroec set for the younger brethren by taking upon himself many of the more humble and laborious tasks during the periods of manual labor. When not occupied in various communal activities, Ruusbroec would regularly go out alone into the forest and there compose his mystical treatises on wax tablets, which he would then bring back to the monastery to be copied by others. As his manuscripts spread so did his fame. In the words of Pomerius, Hujus odor spirantissimus cum longe lateque per adjacentes fragraret provincias, multi ad eum potentes et nobiles utriusque sexus, magistri et clerici, senes et juvenes, confluxerunt … . De Flandria quoque viri spectabiles, de Argentina [Strasbourg] ac Basilea [Basel] ac aliis Rheni praecipue partibus doctores ac clerici non mediocres ad ejus venere devotam praesentiam.15

Among these visitors was Geert Groote, commonly considered the father of the Devotio Moderna, who first visited Groenendaal in 1377 in order to speak with the man whose mystical treatises he had already read and who also made later visits both before and after Ruusbroec’s death. Groote himself undertook the Latin translation of several of Ruusbroec’s works and was so impressed by the monastic ideal as practiced at Groenendaal that he saw it as a model for the congregation that he wished to found and that, after his untimely death in 1384, came into being as the Congregation of Windesheim.16 It is also held by many scholars that another visitor, named Canclaer in Pomerius’s manuscript and described by him as “doctor sacrae paginae, Ordinis Praedicatorum, magnae reputationis et excellentiae,”17 was in fact Johannes Tauler, the difference in spelling then being due to an error in transcription, something quite possible given the similarity between “Tauelaer” and “Canclaer” in Gothic script. There is nothing particularly improbable in such a visit or visits between two great mystics who did not live that far from each other, but it seems most unlikely that any further 15

 Ibid., p. 296.  On the relations between Ruusbroec and Groote, see J. Huijben, O.S.B., “Uit Ruusbroec’s vriendenkring,” in Jan van Ruusbroec: Leven, Werken, pp. 134-40, and Melline d’Asbeck, La mystique de Ruysbroeck 1’Admirable (Paris: Librairie Leroux, 1928), pp. 67-74. 17  Anal. Boll. 4 (1885): 296. 16

8

INTRODUCTION

light will ever be shed on this aspect of Ruusbroec’s life. Pomerius also devotes several chapters to the devotion with which Ruusbroec celebrated the Eucharist, to the compassion he showed toward the needs not only of his brethren but of the birds and other animals in the vicinity of the monastery, and finally to his devout and peaceful death, which took place on December 2, 1381, in the presence of the rest of his community. Ruusbroec was buried in the monastery chapel, but in 1783, at the time of the suppression of the monastery, his remains were transferred to the church where he had long served as a vicar, St. Gudula in Brussels, where they still remain. In 1909 the Holy See approved a Mass and Office for the Blessed Jan van Ruusbroec, to be observed in the diocese of Mechelen (Malines) and also by the Canons Regular of the Lateran, descendants of the foundations of Groenendaal and Windesheim. Introductory Remarks on Ruusbroec’s Treatises As early sources of our knowledge of the sequence of Ruusbroec’s treatises and the circumstances surrounding their composition, we have a listing by Pomerius which is generally considered to be chronological (though with the understanding that certain of the shorter treatises may have been both begun and finished during the time he was still at work on some of the longer ones) and some fuller details in the Prologue of Gheraert van Saintes. Ruusbroec wrote his first treatises while still a vicar at St. Gudula. Of these, the first was Het rijcke der ghelieven (The Kingdom of Lovers), written largely to combat the teachings of the various sects of the New or Free Spirit, whose major error was the claim that one can reach the highest states of contemplation by natural powers alone. For this reason, Ruusbroec places special emphasis on the need for grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, so much so that Ruusbroec himself may have come to feel that in this treatise he did not give sufficient weight to other important aspects of the spiritual life, for example, the virtues. In any case, Gheraert writes that Ruusbroec did not wish his work of his to be reproduced, though in fact copies were soon made of it without his knowledge. Quite different was Ruusbroec’s attitude toward his second work, Die gheestelike brulocht (The Spiritual Espousals). Gheraert writes that Ruusbroec “considered it altogether reliable and good,” and that it had

INTRODUCTION

9

become widely known and read.18 Ever since, this book has been almost unanimously looked upon as his masterpiece. Leonce Reypens, S.J., one of the founders of the Ruusbroecgenootschap, even claims that Ruusbroec’s subsequent treatises can be regarded primarily as works adapting the teaching of the Brulocht for different readers or clarifying one or another aspect of that teaching either in response to a request for clarification or in meeting some objection.19 Of these later treatises, Gheraert says explicitly that Vanden blinckenden steen (The Sparkling Stone) was written in response to a hermit’s request of Ruusbroec for further explanation of certain points in his mystical teaching. That treatise and two others, Vanden vier becoringhen (The Four Temptations) and Vanden kerstenen ghelove (The Christian Faith), are generally considered to have been completed while Ruusbroec was still living in Brussels, while another, his long, allegorical Vanden gheesteliken tabernakel (The Spiritual Tabernacle) seems to have been begun in Brussels but completed only after the move to Groenendaal.20 Ruusbroec’s other five treatises would then have been written in their entirety at Groenendaal, namely, Vanden seven sloten (The Seven Cloisters), Een spieghel der eeuwigher salicheit (A Mirror of Eternal Salvation), Van seven trappen in den graed der gheesteliker minnen (Seven Steps in the Ladder of Spiritual Love), Dat boecsken der verclaringhe (The Little Book of Clarification), and Vanden XII beghinen (The Twelve Beguines), although this last-named work may well be a posthumous collection of separate treatises which Ruusbroec himself never put into final form.

 Gheraert, “Prologhe,” in de Vreese, “Bijdragen,” Het Belfort 10, part 2 (1895): 14.  Leonce Reypens, “Le sommet de la contemplation mystique chez le bienheureux Jean de Ruusbroec,” Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 3 (1922): 253. 20  Manuscript A, from Groenendaal, which formed the basis for the edition of the Tabernakel published by the Ruusbroecgenootschap in the twentieth century, contains the following Latin note at the conclusion of Ruusbroec’s Dutch text: “Hunc librum edidit Dominus Johannes dictus Ruusbroec, primus prior huius monasterii; primam partem presbyter secularis existens, residuum fecit monachus iam effectus.” Jan van Ruusbroec, Werken, vol. 2: Van den gheesteliken Tabernakel, ed. D. A. Stracke, S.J., 2nd ed., rev. (Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 1946), p. 366. See also Stracke’s Introduction to this volume, especially pp. xxvi-xxxi. 18

19

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INTRODUCTION

Already in Ruusbroec’s lifetime many manuscript copies of one or more of his treatises were in existence, both in various dialects of Middle Dutch and in Latin and German translation. As mentioned in the Preface to this study, the Carthusian Laurentius Surius published a Latin translation of Ruusbroec’s complete works in the sixteenth century, which went through two further editions in the following century and was the basis on which translations into other European languages were subsequently made.21 Until the latter half of the nineteenth century, only one treatise, the Brulocht, was available in printed form in the original Middle Dutch,22 but then Professor Jan Baptist David of the University of Louvain published in six volumes the complete works.23 This edition led to a rebirth of scholarly interest in Ruusbroec in the Low Countries, but its philological inadequacies and, even more, the fact that it was published in a very limited edition (less than 200 copies), led the members of the Ruusbroecgenootschap to publish another complete edition of the original in the 1930s, revising it the following decade.24 Between 1981-2006 that same society published a critical edition of the mystic’s Opera Omnia in ten volumes, which include the sixteenth-century Latin translation by Surius and a modern English translation, with Guido de Baere as editor-in-chief. Appendices list variants between this edition and that of the 1940s, but none of the variant readings affect Ruusbroec’s basic doctrine. Against this general background of Ruusbroec’s life and works, the present study will now focus on the significance of minne in his major treatise, Die gheestelike brulocht.

21  Opera omnia, ed. Laurentius Surius (Cologne: Quentel, 1552; 2nd ed., Cologne: Quentel, 1608-09; 3rd ed., Cologne: Friessem, 1692). 22  T’cieraet der gheestelycker bruyloft (Brussels: Jan van Meerbeeck, 1624). 23  Werken van Jan van Ruusbroec, ed. Jan Baptist David, 6 vols. (Ghent: Drukkerij Annoot-Braeckman, 1858-68). 24  Jan van Ruusbroec, Werken, ed. Ruusbroecgenootschap, 4 vols. (Mechelen: Het Kompas, 1932-34; Amsterdam: De Spieghel, 1932-34); 2nd ed., rev. (Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 1944-48).

PART ONE

Minne within the Godhead and its flowing forth to all Creation In accordance with the image of God as “a flowing, ebbing sea,” part one of this study will examine minne at its source within the Trinity (chapter one) and as it “flows forth” from the Godhead to all creation (chapter two). Much of what Ruusbroec has to say about this flowing forth is in terms of the minne and karitate of the incarnate second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, so these realities and their interrelationship will receive particular attention in the second chapter.

CHAPTER ONE

Minne in the Inner Life of the Trinity Introductory Remarks The fundamental place of the Holy Trinity in Ruusbroec’s spiritual theology has been noted by a great many of his commentators, however great might be the differences among themselves in their interpretations of his Trinitarian theology. Thus Albert Ampe, S.J., the most prolific Ruusbroec scholar of the twentieth century, devoted the entire first volume of his multivolume study of the mystic’s teaching to Ruusbroec’s theology of the Trinity as the foundation of his teaching about the soul’s mystical ascent to God.1 Paul Henry, at the beginning of his long, twopart article on the Trinitarian mysticism of Ruusbroec, even claims that Ruusbroec “is perhaps the only author whose spiritual doctrine is exclusively Trinitarian.”2 Louis Dupré, emeritus professor of religious studies at Yale University, claims that Ruusbroec’s mysticism, as distinct from that of someone like Pseudo-Dionysius, can most adequately be characterized as “Trinitarian.”3 Since Ruusbroec finds the source of minne within the Trinity, it is likewise appropriate for his Trinitarian theology to be considered at the beginning of this study. For this purpose, the two passages in the Brulocht where he gives particularly extensive consideration to the Trinity will be cited, each quotation being followed by  Albert Ampe, S.J., Kernproblemen uit de leer van Ruusbroec, Studiën en tekstuitgaven van ons geestelijk erf, vols. 11-13, vol. 11: De grondlijnen van Ruusbroec’s Drieëenheidsleer als onderbouw van den zieleopgang (Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 1950). 2  Paul Henry, “La mystique trinitaire du bienheureux Jean Ruusbroec,” Recherches de science religieuse 39/40 (1951/52): 335. 3  Louis Dupré, “Blessed Vision of Peace: Eight Instructions in Contemplative Life,” conferences given at St. Anselm’s Abbey, Washington, D.C., October 23-25, 1976. 1

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an analysis of the role and meaning of minne in that passage and of certain other terms which will reappear frequently in this study. A Basic Text from Ruusbroec on the Trinity The first of these passages, quoted at some length because of its central importance, reads as follows: The high nature of the Godhead is beheld and seen [by the enlightened person] to be simplicity and unity, unattainable height and unfathomable depth, incomprehensible breadth and eternal length, a dark stillness and a wild desert, a resting place of all the saints for eternity, a bliss common to itself and to all the saints for eternity. One could also behold many other marvels in the fathomless sea of the Godhead. Although we, because of the coarseness of the senses with which we give external expression to it, make use of sensible images, in fact it is beheld and seen from within to be a fathomless, modeless good. But when one gives external expression to it, one attributes to it images and modes in many different ways, according to the degree of enlightenment of the one who brings it to expression. This enlightened person will also behold and see the attributes of the Father in the Godhead: that he is almighty power and might, creator, conserver, mover, beginning and end, cause and principle of all creatures. The stream of grace reveals this clearly to the enlightened understanding. It also reveals the attributes of the eternal Word: unfathomable wisdom and truth, exemplar and life of all creatures, the eternal rule which never changes, one who beholds and sees through all things

Die hoghe natuere der Godheit wert ghemerket ende aengesien hoe si es Simpelheyt ende Eenvoldicheit, ontoegancleke Hoochde ende afgrondighe Diepheit; ombegripelijcke Breyde ende eewighe Lancheit; eene duystere Stille ende eene welde Woestine; alre heilighen Raste in eewicheit, een ghemeyne Ghebruken sijns selfs ende alre heylighen in eewicheit. Noch mochtmen merken menich wonder inder grondeloser Zee der Godheit. Al eest dat wij senlijcke ghelijcke setten om grofheit der senne dien wijt van buyten toenen, dit wert doch inder waerheit van binnen ghemerket ende aensien een grondeloes Goet zonder wise. Maer alsment van buten toenen sal, soe ghevet men hem ghelijcken ende wise in menigher wijs, na dat des menschen redene verclaert es diet toent ende voertbrinct. Dese verclaerde mensche sal oec merken ende aensien die eyghenscap des Vaders inder Godheit, hoe Hi es almechtighe Cracht ende Moghentheit, Sceppere, Onthoudere, Beweghere, Beghin ende Inde: alre creatueren Sake ende Eersticheit. Dit toent die riviere der gracien der verlichter redenen in claerheiden. Si toent oec eyghenscap dies eewighen Woords: afgrondighe Wijsheit ende Waerheit; Exemplaer alre creatueren ende Levendicheit; die eewige Regule sonder wandelbaerheit; een Aenstaren ende

CHAPTER ONE so as to leave nothing concealed, one who shines through and enlightens all the saints in heaven and on earth according to the degree of their worthiness. And as this stream of radiance makes distinctions in many a way, it also reveals to the enlightened understanding the attributes of the Holy Spirit: incomprehensible karitate and bounty, mercy and graciousness, unending fidelity and benevolence, incomprehensibly great richness which flows forth and unfathomable goodness which flows through all heavenly spirits for their delight, a fiery flame which consumes all things and makes them one, a flowing spring rich in savor according to each one’s desire, a preparation and introduction of all the saints into their eternal bliss, and an embrace and penetration of the Father and the Son and all the saints in blissful unity. In the simple nature of the Godhead this is all beheld and seen as undivided and without differentiation, and nevertheless, according to our manner of beholding them, these attributes exist individually, in manifold distinction, for among power and goodness and bounty and truth there are, according to our manner of seeing, great differences. Nevertheless, in the high nature of the Godhead all this subsists undifferentiated and in unity. But as regards the relations which constitute the personal attributes, these do subsist in eternal distinction, for the Father begets distinction. For the Father ceaselessly begets his Son and is himself not begotten, whereas the Son is begotten and cannot beget. Thus the Father has a Son for all eternity, and the Son a Father, and these are the

15

een Dore-sien alle dinc sonder bedectheit; een Doer-schinen ende een Verclaren alre heilighen in hemel ende in eerde na weerdicheit. Want nu dese rivieren der claerheit ghevet menighe wise in onderscheede, soe toent si oec der verlichter redenen eyghenscap des Heylichs Gheests: ombegripelijcke Karitate end Mildicheit; Ontfarmherticheit ende Ghenadicheit; ongheinde Trouwe ende Onsticheit; ombegripelijcke groote uutvloeyende Rijcheit ende afgrondighe Goedde, doervloeyende alle hemelsche gheeste in weldicheit; eene vierighe Vlamme diet al verberret in eenicheit, eene vloeyende Fonteyne rijc van allen smake na yeghewelcs begherlijcheit; een Bereyden ende een Inleyden alre heylighen in haer ewighe zalicheit; een Omvaen ende een Doreghaen dies Vaders ende des Soens ende alre heylighen in ghebrukelijcker eenicheit. Dit werdet al ghemerket ende aenghesien onghedeilt ende sonder partye in eere eenvuldigher natueren der Godheit. Ende nochtan staen dese eyghenscape, persoenlijcker wijs, na onsen ghemerke, in menichfuldich onderscheet; want moghentheit ende goedheit, ende meltheit ende waerheit, in desen es, na onzen siene, groot onderscheet. Nochtan steet al in eenicheit, ende onghedeylt inder hogher natueren der Godheit. Maer die wederdraghinghen die de persoenlijcke eyghenscape maken, die bestaen in een eewich onderscheet; want die Vader ghebaert ondersceet. Want die Vader ghebaret sinen Soene sonder onderlaet, ende Hi en werdet selve niet gheboren. Ende die Sone werdet gheboren, ende Hi en mach niet baren. Aldus hevet die Vader altoes eenen Sone inder

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PART ONE

relations of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father. And the Father and the Son breathe forth a Spirit, which is the will or minne of them both. This Spirit neither begets nor is begotten, but is eternally breathed forth, flowing forth from them both. These three persons are one God and one Spirit, and all the attributes with the works that flow forth from them are common to all the persons, for they work in the power of a simple nature. (Br., 2: 181, 5-182, 28)

eewicheit, ende die Sone eenen Vader: ende dit sijn die wederdraginghen dies Vaders tot den Sone, ende dies Soens tot den Vader. Ende die Vader ende die Sone gheesten eenen Gheest, dat es harer beider wille ochte minne. Ende dese Gheest en baret noch en werdet gheboren, maer Hi moet eewelijcke, uutvloyende van Hem beyden, ghegheest werden. Ende dese drie Persone sijn een God ende een Gheest. Ende alle die eyghenscape met uutvloeyenden werken sijn ghemeyne allen den Personen, want Si werken in crachte eenre eenvuldigher natueren.

This long passage, which is taken from that part of the second book of the Brulocht which treats of the enlightenment of the understanding, contains only one use of the term minne but is nonetheless a passage that indicates with considerable clarity Ruusbroec’s basic understanding of minne within the Trinity. Adhering to the traditional Trinitarian terminology of nature (natuere) and persons (persone), he describes the divine nature first of all in terms of its simplicity and oneness, then in the Pauline images of height, depth, breadth, and length, and finally in a series of images which emphasize the Godhead’s transcendent awesomeness (“a dark stillness and a wild desert”) and its blissful attractiveness (“a resting place” and “a bliss common to itself and to all the saints for eternity”) – that mysterium tremendum et fascinans analyzed centuries later by Rudolf Otto. Ruusbroec concludes this paragraph on the nature of the Godhead with an acknowledgement that the distinctions he has drawn and the images he has used are necessary only because of our lowly state (“because of the coarseness of the senses”), whereas in fact the divine nature is in its simple oneness beyond such distinctions (sonder wise). Ruusbroec next states that someone whose understanding is truly enlightened by the divine bridegroom will “behold and see” still further qualities, namely, those which are attributed to the three persons of the Trinity individually. The attributes of the Father are all centered round the note of creation: he is the all-powerful source of all that is, conserving all creation in being and being himself its last end. On the other hand,

CHAPTER ONE

17

the attributes of the Son are grouped around the themes of clarity and enlightenment, for he is himself wisdom and truth, beholding all things and serving as an exemplar and guide for all creatures. Finally, Ruusbroec lists the attributes of the Holy Spirit which are revealed to the enlightened understanding. If those of the Father are primarily ones of power and those of the Son attributes of clarity, the attributes of the Spirit are primarily affective, as evidenced by such expressions as “mercy,” “benevolence,” “unfathomable goodness which flows through all heavenly spirits for their delight,” “a flowing spring rich in savor,” and “an embrace and penetration of the Father and the Son and all the saints in blissful unity.” Once more Ruusbroec emphasizes the simple oneness of the divine nature by saying that these personal attributes, no less than the images he had formerly applied to the nature itself, are distinct one from the other only according to our manner of perception, whereas in fact the power attributed to the Father, the truth attributed to the Son, and the bounty ascribed to the Spirit, as well as all other such attributes, are in a state of undifferentiated oneness in the divine nature itself. But in keeping with the traditional dictum of Trinitarian theology that the persons have all in common except precisely those relations which constitute them as persons, Ruusbroec goes on to say that the Father and the Son are distinct, eternally so, in that the Father begets and is not begotten, whereas the Son is begotten and cannot beget, while finally the Spirit neither begets nor is begotten but is breathed forth or “spirated” (ghegheest) as the minne of both Father and Son. This statement that the Holy Spirit is the minne of Father and Son is clearly a most fundamental statement about minne in Ruusbroec’s understanding of the Trinity, for he hereby identifies the prototype of minne with one of the persons of the Trinity. In this particular passage no further description of minne is given other than that, as the Spirit, it is “breathed forth” by the Father and the Son, but already in the first book of the Brulocht Ruusbroec has gone into somewhat greater detail. Before writing about the manner of the Son’s coming to us in the Incarnation, Ruusbroec briefly mentions the qualities of the Son according to his divinity – that he is ceaselessly begotten by the Father, that the Father creates, orders, and governs all things in and through the Son, and that the latter is the wisdom of the Father – and then writes that

18

PART ONE

both Father and Son ‘‘breathe forth a Spirit, that is, a minne, which is a bond between them both and among all the saints and all good persons in heaven and on earth.”4 Minne, then, is not only breathed forth by the Father and Son but is furthermore the bond uniting them. This unitive function of minne will be noted often as this study proceeds, most clearly perhaps in connection with Ruusbroec’s rather frequent use of the term minnebandt (“bond of minne”). In addition to this unitive aspect of minne there is also, complementary to it, a pronounced affective aspect. This is not particularly surprising, for we have already seen that the attributes of the Holy Spirit are predominantly affective, but it is important to note that sometimes this aspect even enters into Ruusbroec’s description of the Spirit’s being breathed forth as the minne of Father and Son and so is characteristic not only of the Spirit’s attributes (eyghenscape) but also of the relation (wederdraghinghe) which constitutes the Spirit as a divine person. Not many pages after the long passage that was quoted above from the second book of the Brulocht, Ruusbroec again, though more briefly, refers to the procession of the persons within the Trinity, this time to prepare for his description of the divine “touch” (gherinen) in the inmost part of the soul (about which more will be said in chapter four of this study). Here Ruusbroec writes that although the divine nature is one, it is simultaneously full of life and fruitful, for out of this unity the Son is ceaselessly begotten of the Father. Now ‘‘through this begetting the Father knows the Son and all things in the Son. And the Son knows the Father and all things in the Father, for they are one simple nature. Out of this mutual seeing of the Father and the Son in an eternal clarity there flows an eternal sense of contentment, a fathomless minne, and that is the Holy Spirit.”5 In this passage the affective aspect 4  Br., 1: 111, 25-27: “Ende si gheesten eenen Geest, dat es eene minne, die een bandt harer beyder es, ende alder heylighen ende alre goeder menschen in hemelrijcke ende in eertrijcke.” 5  Br., 2: 194, 18-24: “Overmids dese gheborte bekint die Vader den Sone ende alle dinc inden Sone. Ende die Sone bekint den Vadere ende alle dinc inden Vader, want si sijn eene eenvuldighe natuere. Ute desen ondersiene dies Vaders ende dies Soens in eenre eewigher claerheit, vloeyt een eewich welbehaghen, eene grondelose minne, ende dat es de Heilige Gheest.”

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of minne is made explicit through its being used in apposition with the phrase “an eternal sense of contentment.” Just as in the Gospel the Father speaks of the Son as the one “in whom I am well pleased,” so here both Father and Son are “well pleased” in the other, both take delight in the contemplation of the other, such that this sense of contentment and mutual delight, this fathomless minne, is itself a divine person, the Holy Spirit. Against this background, it is most significant that the attributes of the Holy Spirit which were listed in that long citation from Ruusbroec’s section on the enlightenment of the understanding are so predominantly affective. Even though Ruusbroec explicitly says that these attributes (e.g., bounty, graciousness, benevolence, a goodness that inspires delight, richness in savor, a preparation for eternal bliss) are actually common to all three persons of the Trinity, the fact that they are attributed to the one person who is called “fathomless minne” is further indication of a strongly affective tonality in the term minne as used here by Ruusbroec. A Second Basic Text on the Trinity This same tonality is present in the other passage of the Brulocht where Ruusbroec gives a lengthy exposition of the place of minne within the Trinity. This passage, which comprises the fourth and final part of the relatively short third book of the entire treatise, deserves to be cited in its entirety and analyzed carefully, for it contains a number of themes the understanding of which will help elucidate other references to minne which will be studied in later sections of this study. In the preceding part of this third book Ruusbroec writes of the Son, the eternal Word of the Father, as the image (Beelde) in which the Father sees and reflects himself and all creation. It is in this image, as in their eternal exemplar, that all creatures have eternal life. Those who have entered the contemplative or “God-seeing” life that is the specific theme of this third book therefore have as their most proper activity the pursuit of that image which is their true life and in which and according to which they were created. Ruusbroec concludes that in this pursuit contemplatives “behold God and all things without distinction in a simple seeing in divine brightness,” and that this

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“is the most excellent and most beneficial contemplation to which one can arrive in this life.”6 There now remains for Ruusbroec only one further point to be made, and he makes it in the final part of his treatise in the following words: When the interior, contemplative person has thus attained his eternal image and in this clarity, by means of the Son, has possessed the bosom of the Father, then he is enlightened with divine truth and receives the eternal birth at all times anew, and he goes forth, according to the mode of the light, into a divine contemplation. And here there arises the fourth point and the last, which is a minlijc meeting, wherein lies above all our highest blessedness. You should know that the heavenly Father, as a living ground, with all that lives in him, has actively turned toward his Son as toward his own eternal wisdom, and the same wisdom, and all that lives in it, has actively turned back toward the Father, that is, into the same ground from which it comes. And in this meeting the third person issues forth from the Father and the Son, and this is the Holy Spirit, the minne of them both, which is one with them both in the same nature. And it embraces and penetrates actively and blissfully both the Father and the Son and all that lives in them both with such great riches that all creatures must forever be silent at this, for the incomprehensible marvel which resides in this minne transcends forever

Alse die innighe scouwende mensche aldus vervolcht hevet sijn eewich Beelde, ende in deser luterheit, overmids den Sone, beseten hevet den scoot des Vader, soe es hi verclaert met godlijcker Waerheit. Ende hi ontfeet die eewighe Ghebort alle uren nuwe, ende hi gheet ute, na wise des Lichts in een godlijc scouwen. Ende hier ontsprinct dat vierde poent ende dat leste, dat es een minlijc ontmoet, daer onse hoochste salicheit boven-al in gheleghen es. Ghi sult weten dat die hemelsche Vader alse een levende Gront, met al dien dat in hem levet, werkelijc es ghekeert in sinen Sone alse in sijns selfs eewighe Wijsheit; ende die selve Wijsheit, ende al dat in Hare levet, es werkelijc wederboghet inden Vadere, dat es inden selven Gronde daer si ute comt. Ende in desen ontmoete ontspringhet die derde Persoen tusschen den Vader ende den Sone, dat es die Heilighe Gheest, harer beider Minne, die een met Hem beiden es in derselver natueren. Ende si beveet ende si doergheet werkelijc ende ghebrukelijc den Vader ende den Sone ende al dat in Hem beiden levet met alsoe groter rijcheit dat hier-ave alle creatueren eewelijcke swighen moeten. Want dat ombegripelijcke wonder dat in

6  Br., 3: 246, 30-34: “[Die scouwende menschen] bescouwen Gode ende alle dinc sonder ondersceet in eenen eenvuldighen siene in godlijcker Claerheit. Ende dit es dat eedelste ende dat orborlijcste scouwen daermen toe comen mach in desen levene.”

CHAPTER ONE the understanding of all creatures. But where one understands and tastes this marvel without being astonished at it, there one’s spirit is raised above itself and is one with the Spirit of God, and tastes and sees, without limit as does God, the richness which he himself is in the unity of the living ground wherein he possesses himself according to the mode of his uncreated being. Now this blessed meeting is ceaselessly renewed in us actively according to the manner of God, for the Father gives himself in the Son and the Son in the Father in a perpetual sense of contentment and in a minlijc embrace, and this is renewed constantly in the bond of minne, for just as the Father ceaselessly sees all things anew in the birth of the Son, so too are all things loved (werden … ghemint) anew by the Father and by the Son in the flowing forth of the Holy Spirit. And this is the active meeting of the Father and the Son in which we are minlijck embraced by means of the Holy Spirit in eternal minne. Now this active meeting and this minlijc embrace is in its ground blissful and without mode, for the fathomless, modeless being of God is so dark and so modeless that it encompasses in itself all the divine modes and the activity and properties of the persons in the rich embrace of the essential unity and produces a divine bliss in this abyss of the ineffable. Here there is a blissful crossing over and a self-transcending sinking down into the essential void, where all divine names and all modes and all living reasons which are reflected in the mirror of divine truth all pass away into simple ineffability, without

21

deser minnen leghet, dat onthoghet eewelijcke alle creatueren in verstane. Maer daar men dit wonder versteet ende ghesmaect sonder verwonderen, daer es de gheest boven hem selven ende één met den Gheeste Gods, ende smaect ende siet, sonder mate alse God, die rijcheit die Hi selve es in eenicheit des levenden Gronts daer hi Hem besit na wise sire onghescapenheit. Nu wert dit verwende ontmoet in ons na die wise Gods, sonder onderlaet werkelijcke vernuwet. Want die Vader ghevet Hem inden Sone, ende die Sone inden Vader in een eewich Welbehagen ende in een minlijc Behelsen. Ende dit vernuwet alle uren in bande van Minnen. Want alsoe ghelijckerwijs alse de Vader sonder onderlaet alle dinc nuwe ansiet in die ghebort des Soens, also werden alle dinghe nuwe ghemint vanden Vader ende vanden Sone inden uutvlote des Heilichs Gheests. Ende dit es dat werkelijcke ontmoet des Vaders ende des Soens daer wi minlijck in behelset sijn overmids den Heilighen Gheest in eewigher Minnen. Nu es dit werckelijc ontmoet ende dit minlijcke omhelsen in sinen gronde ghebrukelijc ende sonder wise. Want die afgrondighe onwise Gods die es soe duuster ende soe wiseloes, dat si in hare beveet alle godlijcke wisen, ende werc ende eygenscap der Persone inden rijcken omvanghe der weselijcker eenicheit, ende maect een godlijck Ghebruken in dien Abis der Onghenaemtheit. Ende hier es een ghebrukelijc overliden ende een vervlietende inslach in die weselijcke bloetheit, daer alle godlijcke namen ende alle wisen ende alle levende redenen die inden spieghel godlijcker Waerheit ghebeeldet sijn: die vallen alle, in die eenvuldighe

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mode and without reason. For in this groundless abyss of simplicity all things are encompassed in blissful blessedness, and the ground itself remains completely uncomprehended, except in the essential unity. Before this the [divine] persons give way and so does all that lives in God, for here there is nothing other than an eternal rest in a blissful embrace of minlijc immersion. And this is in that modeless being which all interior spirits have chosen above all things. This is the dark stillness in which all minnende become lost. But if we could prepare ourselves in virtues in the ways mentioned, we would almost have to be stripped of our bodies and flee into the wild sea, from which creatures could never call us back. That we might possess the essential unity blissfully and might clearly contemplate the unity in the Trinity may the divine minne grant us, for it turns no beggar away. Amen. Amen. (Br., 3: 247, 27-249, 25)

Onghenaemtheit, in onwisen ende sonder redene. Want in desen grondelosen wiele der Simpelheit werden alle dinc bevaen in ghebrukelijcker Salicheit, ende die Gront blivet selve al ongegrepen, het en si met weselijcker Eenicheit. Hier-vore moeten die Persone wiken, ende al dat in Gode levet, want hier en es anders niet dan een eewich Rasten in eenen ghebrukelijcken Omvanghe minlijcker ontvlotentheit. Ende dit es in dat wiselose Wesen dat alle innighe gheeste boven alle dinc hebben vercoren. Dit es die doncker Stille daer alle minnende in sijn verloren. Maer mochte wij ons aldus in duechden ghereden, wij souden ons scirre vanden live ontcleden, ende souden vlieten inde welde zeebaren, nemmermeer en mocht ons creatuere herhalen. Dat wij ghebrukelijcke besitten moeten die weselijcke Eenicheit, ende eenheit claerlijcke bescouwen in Drieheit, dat gheve ons die godlijcke minne die en-ghene bedelere en ontseit. Amen. Amen.

Once again, as in the passages already quoted, the Holy Spirit is described as the mutual minne of the Father and the Son, and accordingly the “meeting” of Father and Son from which the Spirit issues forth is called “a minlijc meeting.” The wondrous character of this meeting eternally transcends the understanding of all creatures (onthoghet eewelijcke alle creatueren in verstane), and yet Ruusbroec proceeds immediately to say that the true contemplative can be so raised above the normal condition of creatures as to be able to “understand and taste” (versteet ende ghesmaect) this wondrous reality after all. In this way, the minlijc meeting of the divine persons becomes at the same time a minlijc meeting for the human person with the divine. Indeed, Ruusbroec claims that it is in this meeting, above all else, that our highest blessedness resides. Furthermore, just as the meeting itself is minlijc, it is constantly renewed in the contemplative “in the bond of minne,” which Ruusbroec goes on to explain as meaning that the mutual love of Father and Son

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in the Spirit embraces not merely the divine persons but all creatures as well – all are joined together in the same bond. Here, it is not primarily a question of the creature’s loving the divine persons, but first and foremost of God’s loving us in a meeting whereby “we are minlijck embraced by means of the Holy Spirit in eternal minne.” Thus far our commentary on this final section of the entire treatise has been limited to the first three paragraphs of that section. In the remaining two paragraphs there are also several important references to minne, but from a very different perspective. Up to this point in the section, Ruusbroec has discussed what he calls “the active meeting” (dat werkelijcke ontmoet) of Father and Son. Something of the import of werkelijc can be ascertained from its literal translation: the Father is described as “actively” turning toward his Son as toward his own eternal wisdom, and the Son in turn “actively” turns back toward the Father, a double movement or activity which, as we have seen, issues in the breathing forth of the Holy Spirit. However, a more thorough consideration of the entire context of these first three paragraphs will lead to a much fuller understanding of what is involved in this werkelijc meeting. Several points can be noted. For one thing, there is constant reference to the three persons of the Trinity in their distinctness. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are several times named. Again, there is reference to succession, for this werkelijc, minlijc meeting is said to be constantly renewed, and the Father is said to see all things anew in the birth of the Son and, with the Son, to love all things anew in the Spirit. Finally, this meeting is not, as it were, self-subsistent, but has its ground or foundation (gront) elsewhere. The locus of this foundation is described by Ruusbroec in the final two paragraphs of the section by means of a number of terms which are all more or less synonymous. No longer is there any question of distinctions or modes (wisen), for in its ground the meeting is modeless (sonder wise). No longer is there any question of the activity of the divine persons, but rather of an eternal rest (een eewich Rasten) and dark stillness (doncker Stille). The divine names pass over into a simple ineffability (eenvuldighe Onghenaemtheit), and even the persons themselves are said to give way before an essential unity (weselijcker enicheit). All multiplicity and separateness give way to an essential void (weselijcke bloetheit), and this void of utter simplicity is

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itself without further ground or foundation. There remains only an ineffable abyss, an immersion in joyous bliss, the modeless being of the Godhead. For the proper understanding of these difficult final two paragraphs, in which the term weselijc now predominates in place of werkelijc, the exhaustive analysis of the terms wesen, weselijc, and overweselijc published by Joseph Alaerts of the Ruusbroecgenootschap is most helpful.7 In the concluding, synthetic part of his study, he notes that on the basis of the preceding, analytical part it can be concluded with certainty that in Ruusbroec’s Brulocht the terminology of wesen/weselijc “always refers to unity, to union, to what is immovably given and present.”8 Moreover, among Ruusbroec’s many uses of this terminology, Alaerts has found that fully two thirds of the time, including all the uses in the final section of the Brulocht, it is in the context of what Alaerts calls “a phenomenology of mystical experience” that Ruusbroec employs the terms. In this context, the terms characterize the aspect of union or communion in the experience, “as over against all aspects of separation, division, difference, or distinct attributes of whatever sort.”9 What must be recognized, however, if Ruusbroec is to be correctly interpreted on this point, is that even if the note of ineffability, incomprehensibility, modelessness, and simplicity predominates at the conclusion of the Brulocht, it nevertheless always remains in dialectical bipolarity with the note of effability, comprehension, modality, and multiplicity. As Albert Deblaere once pointed out in an article in Sacramentum Mundi concerning the mysticism of the Low Countries, “as in the model of all love, in the Trinitarian life, the persons lose themselves in the blessed abyss of the divine nature, and yet remain always Father, Son, and the Spirit of love; so we shall be one life with God in our 7  Joseph Alaerts, “Het ‘wezenlijke’ in de zielsopgang naar de mystiek,” Bijdragen: Tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 30 (1969): 279-97; “Het ‘wezenlijke’ in het mystieke verenigmgsleven,” ibid., pp. 415-35; “La terminologie ‘essentielle’ dans Die gheestelike brulocht,” Ons Geestelijk Erf 49 (1975): 248-330; “La terminologie ‘essentielle’ dans Die gheestelike brulocht et Dat rijcke der ghelieven,” ibid., pp. 337-65. 8  Alaerts, “La terminologie ‘essentielle’ dans Die gheestelike brulocht et Dat rijcke der ghelieven,” p. 350. 9  Ibid., pp. 364-65.

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‘super-essential’ life and still eternally other in our created nature.”10 Similarly, Paul Henry observes in his study of Ruusbroec’s Trinitarian mysticism that the dialectical moments are contrary, but they are complementary and ontologically simultaneous. Ruusbroec knows perfectly well that the essence [wesen] of God is activity, that the unity of his being is neither exterior to nor, on the whole, superior to the multiplicity of his attributes … . … If one discerns a certain hierarchy of value between unity and multiplicity, as in Plotinus, one must recognize that [in Ruusbroec] the ‘inferior’ level is never suppressed by the ‘superior,’ which is not so in the case of Plotinus. This complementarity of dialectically opposed values … is one of the distinctive marks of [Ruusbroec’s] spirituality and of his mysticism, in which contemplation and action are kept in equilibrium.11 10  Albert Deblaere, “The Netherlands [School of Mysticism],” in Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology, ed. Karl Rahner, with Cornelius Ernst and Kevin Smyth, 6 vols. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969; London: Burns and Oates, 1969), 4:144. 11  Paul Henry, “La mystique trinitaire du bienheureux Jean Ruusbroec,” pp. 340-41. The “complementarity of dialectically opposed values” of which Henry here speaks, leading to what he calls a “mysticism in which contemplation and action are kept in equilibrium,” is perhaps most evident in those passages where Ruusbroec writes of God’s and man’s ghemeynheit. Literally, this term means “commonness,” but not in the modern sense of “ordinary” or “average.” Rather it signifies a going out to all other persons “in common,” without any self-serving distinction of persons (and while retaining a deep, experiential union in the Godhead). More will be said in chapters two and four of this study about this aspect of Ruusbroec’s teaching as it appears in the Brulocht. At this point it would be helpful to see briefly how Ruusbroec expresses this ideal in his earlier treatise, Het rijcke der ghelieven. In that section of part four of the treatise which treats the gift of wisdom, Ruusbroec shows how all persons gifted with divine wisdom lead lives which are simultaneously marked by blissful contemplation in the divine wesen and by intense virtuous activity on behalf of all who are in need: “After these persons have become lost in the darkness of this desert [of the divine wesen] nothing remains, for there there is neither giving nor receiving, but rather a simple, onefold being (wesen). There God and all who are united with him are immersed and lost and can never again find themselves in this modeless being, for it is a pure, simple oneness, and this is the highest blessedness in the kingdom of God. Nevertheless, all these spirits must descend in works (werken) of karitate and in all virtues, for the higher and more excellent a person is, the more common (ghemeynre) is he to all who need him, whether corporeally or spiritually” (Ruusbroec, Werken, vol. 1: Het rijcke der ghelieven & Die gheestelike brulocht, p. 87, lines 1-11).

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Now that this dialectical relationship between unity and multiplicity, wesen and werc, has been pointed out, it should further be noted that minne is no less present at the one pole than at the other. Its place in the “active meeting” has already been seen; the meeting itself is described by Ruusbroec as minlijc. But at the other pole, where “there is nothing other than an eternal rest,” the rest itself is said to occur “in a blissful embrace of minlijc immersion.” The contemplatives who lose themselves in this dark stillness are alternatively called minnende, and the aspect of the Godhead to which Ruusbroec refers in the short prayer of petition which forms the very last sentence of the entire treatise is that of minne: “That we might possess the essential unity blissfully and might clearly contemplate the unity in the Trinity may the divine minne grant us, for it turns no beggar away. Amen. Amen.” A Text Confirming the Existence of Complementary Aspects in Minne From this it seems that within minne itself there might be a dialectical relationship of contrary yet complementary aspects, an aspect of activity or werc, another of more passive enjoyment, rest, ghebruken.12 That this is indeed the case is abundantly clear from Ruusbroec’s introductory remarks to the third book of the Brulocht, where he writes as follows: The hidden, divine nature is forever actively contemplating and minnende according to the mode of the persons, and constantly enjoying in the persons’ being embraced in the unity of the being. In this embrace in the essential unity of God all interior spirits are one with God in minlijc immersion, and are that same one which the being is in itself according to the mode of blessedness. (Br. 3: 239, 17-24)

Die verborghene godlijcke natuere, die es eewich werkelijc scouwende ende minnende na wise der Persone, ende altoes ghebrukende in eenen omvanghe der Persone in eenicheit des Wesens. In desen omvanghe inder weselijcker eenicheit Gods sijn alle innighe gheeste één met Gode in minlijcker ontvlotenheit, ende dat selve één dat dat Wesen selve es in Hem selven na wise der salicheit.

12  Ghebruken is a Middle Dutch verb etymologically related to the Latin frui, “to enjoy.” In Ruusbroec it is often used substantively and could then, depending on context, be translated into English as “enjoyment,” “bliss,” “blissful repose,” or, somewhat archaically but with etymological correctness, as “fruition.” The adjectival form is ghebrukelijc, generally translated in this study as “blissful.”

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In the first sentence of this passage, minnende is clearly an activity, just as is the “work” of actively (werkelijc) contemplating, and both activities are in dialectical opposition to the pole of rest, of a state of rejoicing (ghebrukende) at being embraced in the divine unity. And yet this latter pole, this state of blissful immersion in the essential (weselijc) unity of God is itself described as a minlijc immersion. There is, then, an active aspect of minne within the Godhead, characterized by the sharing of contemplatives in this activity, and also a passive aspect of minne, characterized by “being embraced,” by blissful immersion in the divine unity on the part of the divine persons and also of the contemplatives who experience this embrace. A Summary of the Findings of This Chapter In summarizing the findings of this chapter on minne in the inner life of the Trinity, it should prove helpful to make use of Josef Pieper’s book About Love, which could perhaps best be described as a meditation on the meaning of love in the Western philosophical and theological tradition. That much of what Pieper writes could help in such a summary of Ruusbroec is not surprising, for, as has already been pointed out in the Preface of this study, Ruusbroec was himself firmly grounded in that tradition; in the already cited words of Fraling, “in details Ruusbroec was often not original; much stemmed from the mystical tradition of the Church. But his achievement was the synthesis, which grew out of the intuitive power of his view of the whole.” The first and most fundamental finding about minne within the Trinity was that Ruusbroec frequently refers to the Holy Spirit as the minne of the Father and Son. He further teaches that it is the mutual contemplation of these two persons of the Trinity, whereby the Father “has actively turned toward his Son as toward his own eternal wisdom, and the same wisdom, and all that lives in it, has actively turned back toward the Father,” which gives rise to the spiration of personified minne. This turning of the Father toward the Son and of the Son toward the Father is one particular instance of what Pieper calls an “approving contemplation,” a “looking that as yet is not tinged with the desire to possess,”

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which he sees at the root of all true love.13 Pieper goes on to elaborate on the significance of the word “approving” in that term and thereby shows its close relationship with love itself: In every conceivable case love signifies much the same as approval. This is first of all to be taken in the literal sense of the word’s root: loving someone or something means finding him or it probus, the Latin word for “good.” It is a way of turning to him or it and saying, “It’s good that you exist; it’s good that you are in this world.” To avert possible misunderstandings we must elaborate, and almost correct, this definition. I do not mean that the act of love necessarily involves any such bare statement, although it is quite possible. The approval I am speaking of is rather an expression of the will. It signifies the opposite of aloof, purely “theoretical” neutrality. It testifies to being in agreement, assenting, consenting, applauding, affirming, praising, glorifying and hailing. Distinct as the difference in intensity is between mere agreement and enthusiastic affirmation, there is one common element in all the members of this series – which, of course, could easily be extended. All the members are without exception forms of expression of the will.14

This passage not only helps elucidate the highly affective, non”theoretical” overtones of minne in the passages from Ruusbroec which have been cited, but also does much to clarify the fact that in one of those passages Ruusbroec describes the Father and Son as breathing forth the Spirit not merely as their minne, but as “the will or minne of them both” (harer beider wille ochte minne).15 Although Ruusbroec was himself given to less abstract modes of expression than Pieper, a professional philosopher, there is therefore every reason to believe that the Dutch mystic would have agreed with the following passage from Pieper about the place of love at the root of all willing, for Ruusbroec was

13  Josef Pieper, About Love, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1974), p. 17. (This book originally appeared in German under the title Über die Liebe [Munich: Kösel Verlag, 1972].) 14  Ibid., p. 19. 15  Br., 2: 182, 22.

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himself very much a part of that Western tradition that is here discussed: In the great tradition of European thinking about man it has always been held that just as the immediate certainties of seeing are the foundation and prerequisite of all intellectual activity, so also love is the primal act of willing which permeates all willing-to-do from its very source. It is asserted that all volitional decision has its origin in this fundamental act, that loving is the underlying principle of willing and comes first both in temporal succession and order of rank. Not only, it is held, is love by its nature the earliest act of will, and not only is every impulse of the will derived from love, but love also inspires, as the principium, that is, as the immanent source, all specific decisions, and keeps them in motion.16

In addition to this affective note to Ruusbroec’s use of the term minne there is also the unitive element, which has been pointed out several times in this chapter. Here, too, a passage from Pieper illustrates how natural it is for this to be emphasized, for however different our definitions of love and however different in fact its manifold forms are, one element recurs in all descriptions of it and in all actualizations of it: the tendency toward union. Love is, as Dionysius Areopagita puts it, a vis unitiva and concretiva (henotiké kai synkratiké).17

Finally, it has been noted that there is both an active aspect to minne, which in Trinitarian terms is seen in the Father and Son’s loving each other and all things in the Spirit, going out to another distinct being in a minlijc meeting, and also a passive aspect, wherein the divine persons and all who are united with them in a truly contemplative life lose themselves in the ineffability of the Godhead, where “there is nothing other 16

 Pieper, p. 21.  Ibid., p. 91. The reference to the Areopagite is to The Divine Names, chap. 4, sec. 15. The term synkratiké refers literally to a “mixing” or “blending together,” and so is a very strong term for expressing the union experienced by the lover with the beloved. A somewhat similar terminology is that of “minlijc immersion,” used often by Ruusbroec. This and similar expressions of union and felt oneness have at times left the mystics open to charges of pantheism, especially on the part of literal-minded critics. As will be shown in some detail in chapter five of the present study, a reading of such phrases in their full context is sufficient to free Ruusbroec from any such charges. 17

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than an eternal rest in a blissful embrace of minlijc immersion.” It seems clear to the present writer that an objective reading of the already cited final section of the Brulocht indicates that there is, in Henry’s phrase, “a certain hierarchy of value” between the poles of activity and passivity, of multiplicity and unity, of desiring quest and blissful rest. It is only the latter pole which Ruusbroec claims “interior spirits have chosen above all things.”18 But, as has also been noted, this priority is never in any sense to the exclusion of the other pole; Ruusbroec was in fact a tireless opponent of those quietists of his day who advocated such an exclusion. Minne within the Trinity is never purely and simply at rest, but always and everywhere active as well, flowing forth not only to other divine persons but also to all creation. It will be the special purpose of the next chapter of this study to describe this flowing forth of divine minne in the created order, with special emphasis on the minne and karitate of the Incarnate Word toward mankind.

18

 Br. 3: 249, 17-18. Italics mine.

CHAPTER TWO

The Flowing Forth of God’s Minne toward Creation Introductory Remarks It has already been noted in the first chapter of this study that minne within the Trinity is by no means limited to the persons of the Trinity. A passage from the first book of the Brulocht was cited to the effect that the Holy Spirit, breathed forth as the one minne of Father and Son, is a bond not only between those two persons but also with “all the saints and all good men in heaven and on earth.” A very similar passage was cited from the final section of the entire treatise, where Ruusbroec writes that just as the Father sees all things anew in the birth of the Son, “so too are all things loved (ghemint) anew by the Father and by the Son in the flowing forth of the Holy Spirit. And this is the active meeting of the Father and the Son in which we are minlijck embraced by means of the Holy Spirit in eternal minne.” It is the purpose of the present chapter to study in greater detail this minne of God for all creation. God as Our Minnere In accordance with the teaching of the passages cited above, Ruusbroec at times describes God quite simply as our minnere. For example, when in the second book of the Brulocht Ruusbroec treats the role of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in “the interior life,” he says of the person who has received the gift of understanding that “he beholds and notes with all the saints the excellence of his minnere – his incomprehensible height and fathomless depth, length and breadth, wisdom and truth, goodness and unspeakable generosity, and all such minlijc properties

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which are in God our minnere without number and without limit in his high nature, for all this he is himself.”1 It is to be noted that even the various attributes of God which are here mentioned are all succinctly described as minlijc, for this helps make clear the fact that ultimately it was out of minne that God fashioned creation at all, even though in the following short passage where Ruusbroec names the reason why God created there is no explicit reference to minne but only to attributes elsewhere described as minlijc: The reason why God created the angels and man was his boundless goodness and nobility – something which he wished to do so that the blessedness and richness which he is himself might be revealed to rational creatures, in order that they might savor him in time and enjoy him beyond time in eternity. (Br., 1: 110, 26-31)

Die waeromme dat God die inghele ende den mensce schiep, dat was sine grondelose goede ende edelheyt, dat Hijt doen woude op-dat die zalicheyt ende die rijcheyt die Hi selve is gheopenbaert worde der redelijcker creatueren, op-dat si Sijns ghesmaecte inder tijt, ende ghebruycte boven tijt in der eewicheyt.

Moreover, the divine minne which underlay God’s creative act did not afterwards cease. Ruusbroec speaks of God as one who “has poured his grace and his minne into our souls,”2 and as one who will visit a person in “the interior life” with “a rich outpouring of his fathomless minne, for he wishes to dwell in bliss in the minnende spirit.”3 Elsewhere in the same second book of the Brulocht Ruusbroec replaces the imagery of the “pouring forth” of minne with that of God’s “setting us aflame” with minne, saying that “through the Holy Spirit and the eternal Wisdom, God inclines to every creature individually and bestows gifts and enflames with minne each one according to his excellence and according to the state in which he was established and chosen because 1  Br., 2: 218, 7-13: “[Hi] anesiet ende merket met allen heilighen die eedelheit sijns Minneren: sine ombegripelijcke hoocheyt ende sine afgrondighe diepheit, lancheit ende breetheit, wijsheit ende waerheit; sine goedde ende sine ontsprekelijcke meldicheit, ende alselcke minlijcke eyghenscape die in Gode sijn onsen Minnere zonder ghetal, ende alle grondeloes in sire hogher natueren, want Hi eest selve.” 2  Br., 2: 154, 21-22: “sine gracie ende sine minne in onse ziele gestort hevet.” 3  Br., 2: 208, 13-15: “met rijcken vloeyene sire grondeloser minnen, want Hi wilt in welden wonen in die minnende gheeste.”

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of his virtues and the eternal providence of God.”4 Ruusbroec also makes clear that in addition to this gift of minne itself, God’s other gifts to us are given “out of minne and gratuitous goodness,”5 and of these one of the most central and most frequently mentioned is that of the sending of the second person of the Trinity to be our redeemer: “When God thought the time had come, and he had mercy on the suffering of his gheminde, he sent his only-begotten Son to earth to a rich chamber and a glorious temple, which was the body of the glorious virgin Mary.”6 Christ’s Minne toward Mankind… . Turning, then, to a consideration of Christ’s minne toward mankind in his incarnation and redemption, it should first be noted that there are, not surprisingly, a number of similarities between Ruusbroec’s already cited descriptions of God as creator and his descriptions of Jesus Christ as savior and redeemer. Christ, too, is several times referred to purely and simply as “our minnere,” as in the following passage about the crucified savior: “Our minnere was silent about all his suffering and cried out to his Father: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.’”7 Again, just as God created the world out of minne, so too did the Son take flesh for the same reason: “The reason why God became man was his inconceivable minne and the need of all men, for they were corrupted by the fall of original sin and could not themselves make 4  Br., 2: 194, 24-29: “Overmids den Heilighen Gheest ende die eewighe wijsheit neyghet hem God tote elcker creatueren met onderscheede, ende gavet ende ontfunct in minnen elcken na sine edelheit, ende na sinen staet daer hi in gheset es ende vercoren overmids duechde ende die eewighe voersienicheit Gods.” 5  Br., 2: 205, 27-28: “van minnen ende van vrier goeden.” 6  Br., Preface: 103, 26-29: “Maer doet Gode tijt dochte, ende Hem dies doghens sire gheminder ontfaermde, doen sandt Hi sinen eenghebornen Sone in eertrijcke in eene rijckelijcke sale ende in eenen gloriosen tempel, dat was die lichame der glorioser maghet Marien.” 7  Br., 1: 115, 23-25: “Al des doghens versweech onse minnere ende riep sinen Vader ane: ‘Vader vergheeft hem want si en weten niet wat si doen.’” Already in the Preface to the Brulocht Ruusbroec refers once to Christ as “our minnere” (104, 18-19).

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amends.”8 Having become man for this reason, the incarnate Son led a life whose quality leads Ruusbroec often to describe him as minlijc, as in the following passage from the second book of the treatise: In him [Christ] was and is the fullness of all graces and all gifts. And therefore Christ’s heart and his way of life and his conduct and his service flowed forth in mercy, in gentleness, in humility, and in mildness. And he was so gracious and minlijc that his conduct and his being attracted all men of good will. (Br., 2: 176, 22-28)

In Hem was ende es volheit alre gracien ende alre gaven. Ende hier-omme vloeyde Cristus herte ende sine maniere ende sine wandelinghe ende sinen dienst in goedertierenheiden, ende in sachtmoedicheiden, ende in oetmoedicheiden, ende in meldicheiden. Ende Hi was soe gracioes ende soe minlijc, dat sine wandelinghe ende sijn wesen alle menschen trac die goeder natueren waren.

One aspect of this gracious, minlijc being of Christ which Ruusbroec emphasizes is that it was common (ghemeyn) to all. There is even a section of the second book of the Brulocht in which Ruusbroec presents Christ as an explicit model for us in this regard: Now note how Christ gave himself to all in common in true fidelity. His exalted, interior prayer flowed out to his Father and embraced in common all those who wish to be saved. Christ was common in minne, in instruction, in correction; in gently consoling and generously giving; in kindly and mercifully forgiving … . Christ had nothing properly his own, but everything in common: body and soul, mother and disciples, cloak and tunic. He ate and drank for our sake; he lived and died for our sake. (Br., 2: 189, 19-26 & 31-34)

Nu merket hoe Cristus Hem selven gaf ghemeyne, in gherechter trouwen. Sijn innighe hoghe ghebet was uutvloeyende te sinen Vader, ende ghemeyne allen den ghenen die behouden willen sijn. Cristus was ghemeyne in minnen, in leeringhen, in berespene; in troostene met saechtmoedicheden, in ghevene met miltheiden; in verghevene met goedertierenheiden ende met ontfarmicheiden … . Cristus en hadde niet propers noch eyghens, maer alle ghemeyne: lijf ende ziele, Moeder ende discipele, mantel ende roc. Hi at ende hi dranc om onsen wille; Hi leefde ende starf om onsen wille.

8  Br., 1: 110, 31-111, 3: “Die waeromme dat God mensche wert, dat was sine ombegripelijcke minne ende alre menschen noot; want si verdorven waren met den valle der erfzonde, ende si en mochten niet ghebeteren.”

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Here, too, there is a close similarity between the description of Christ’s minne for us and some of Ruusbroec’s more general descriptions of God’s minne, as, for example, in the opening pages of the first book, where it is said that God’s “fathomless minne is common to all” and that through this universal love “which God has toward all men he has had his name and the redemption of human nature preached and revealed to the ends of the earth.”9 Finally, and quite often, Christ’s redemptive death is said to have been undergone out of minne. Ruusbroec writes of Christ “who died for us out of minne” or “out of minne for our sake,”10 of the divine bridegroom who for our sake “became man and labored in minne unto death,”11 and of him who “died in the bonds of minne.”12 Occasionally, Ruusbroec enters into greater detail concerning Christ’s sufferings and death, as in the following passage from the second book of the Brulocht, where once more Christ’s passion is said to have been undergone out of minne: Christ lowered himself and gave his bodily life into the hands of his enemies, and he was denied and abandoned by his friends in such need. And from his nature there was taken all consolation both from without and from within, and upon it was placed misery and pain and scorn and oppression and burden and the price of redeeming all sins according to justice; and he bore this in humble patience. And he wrought the strong works of minne in this state of abandonment and thereby purchased and gained our eternal heritage. (Br., 2: 177, 14-24)

9

Cristus nederde Hem, ende gaf sijn lijflijcke leven inden handen sire vianden, ende Hi wert ombekint ende ghelaten van sinen vrienden in selcker noodt. Ende der natueren wert ontrocken allen troost van buyten ende van binnen, ende op hare wert gheladen ellende ende pine ende versmaetheit, ende last ende bordene ende coop alre zonden te betalenne na gherechticheit; ende Hi droecht in oetmoedigher verduldicheit. Ende Hi wrochte die stercke werke van minnen in deser ghelatenheit, ende Hi hevet daer-met hercreghen ende ghecocht onse eewige erfachticheit.

 Br., 1: 106, 2 & 6-9: “sine grondelose minne ghemeyne es”; “Overmids sine ghemeyne minne die God hevet tot allen menschen, soe hevet Hi sinen name ende verlossenisse menschelijcker natueren doen prediken ende openbaren in allen inden van aertrijcke.” 10  Br., 1: 115, 18: “die om ons van minnen starf,” and Br. 1: 121, 11: “… starf in minnen om onsen wille.” 11  Br., 1: 141, 12-13: “mensche worden is ende in minnen ghearbeyt hevet tot der doot.” 12  Br., 2: 144, 21: “es ghestorven in bande van minnen.”

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All of these references to the incarnate Word’s having suffered and died for us “out of minne” indicate clearly that Ruusbroec does not see God’s minne for mankind as merely some kind of effortless emanation from the Godhead, leaving the divine persons essentially uninvolved with the historical dimension of that “flowing forth.” On the contrary, Ruusbroec here emphasizes that Christ’s minne required the giving of himself in agonizing abandonment and painful death. This sacrificial, self-giving aspect of Christ’s “strong works of minne” must not be lost sight of for a full understanding of what those “works” involved. Christ’s Karitate and Its Relation to Minne Up to this point, this consideration of the divine minne toward creation has been relatively uncomplicated. If the various aspects of minne which have been presented in this chapter were to be summed up under one heading, it would most accurately be that of God’s self-giving, effective will for the true good and happiness of his creatures. God created us in order that we might “savor him in time and enjoy him beyond time in eternity.” When this possibility became blocked through original sin, inasmuch as men “were corrupted by the fall of original sin and could not themselves make amends,” one of the divine persons himself became man out of minne. Christ’s entire life was marked by gentleness, humility, mildness and similar kinds of minlijc behavior toward all persons, and this life finally came to an end in a passion that is itself called “the strong works of minne,” whereby there was restored to mankind the eternal inheritance which had been lost. It has, however, already been noted in the Preface to this study that one useful way of determining the full significance of minne in the Brulocht is to see it in relationship with two other terms, liefde and karitate, which could also be translated into modern English as “love.” It is precisely in treating the mysteries of the incarnation and redemption that Ruusbroec makes rather frequent use of the term karitate; an examination of these texts is therefore called for at this point. One key sentence for Ruusbroec’s understanding of the incarnation has already been cited: “The reason why God became man was his inconceivable minne and the need of all men, for they were corrupted

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by the fall of original sin and could not themselves make amends.” This sentence is immediately followed by the one cited below, whose relationship to the preceding sentence may not be at all obvious at first reading: But the reason why Christ, according to his divinity and also according to his humanity, did all his works on earth was a fourfold reason: his divine minne, which is unfathomable; and the created minne, which is called karitate, which he had in his soul by means of the union of the eternal Word and the perfect gifts of his Father; and the great need of human nature; and the honor of his Father. These are the reasons for the coming of Christ our bridegroom and of all his works, both exterior and interior. (Br., 1: 111, 3-12)

Maer die waeromme dat Cristus na sire godheit ende oec na sire menscheyt alle sine wercke in eertrijcke wrochte, diere waeromme es viere, dat es: sine godlijcke minne die onghemeeten es; ende die ghescapene minne die karitate hetet, die Hi hadde in sire zielen overmids vereeninghe des eewighen Wordes ende volcomene gaven sijns Vaders; ende de grote noodt menschelijcker natueren; ende die eere sijns Vaders. Dit sijn die waerommen der toecomst Cristi ons Brudegoms ende alle sire wercke uutwendich ende inwendich.

To clarify the difference between these two passages, it should first be noted that in the latter, the subject of the subordinate clause is “Christ, according to his divinity and also according to his humanity,” whereas in the former sentence the subject of the corresponding clause is “God,” without further specification, though Ruusbroec’s theology would, of course, have this to be understood as referring to the second person of the Trinity, since neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit “became man.” The difference is nonetheless significant: in the one case it is a question of why the second person of the Trinity became incarnate, in the other it is a question of why that person, already incarnate, “did all his works on earth.” In the former case, a twofold reason is given: God’s “inconceivable minne” and “the need of all men.” In the latter case, a fourfold reason is given. Of those four, one is simply repeated (man’s need), another is completely new (the honor of the Father), and the remaining two represent a kind of subdivision of the other reason why God became man, namely, his inconceivable minne, for now Ruusbroec specifies that there is a “divine minne, which is unfathomable,” and also a “created minne, which is called karitate, which he [Christ] had in his soul by means of the union of the eternal Word and the perfect gifts of the

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Father.” While this description of karitate as “created minne” is by no means sufficient for a full understanding of what Ruusbroec means by karitate, it is a helpful first step toward such an understanding, for it indicates a limiting of karitate to the created order. It is in this connection most significant that Ruusbroec never says that the Father or the Holy Spirit acts “out of karitate,” nor does he say this even of the Son considered simply in his divine nature as the second person of the Trinity, but only of the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, and of other human beings. Moreover, the locus of Christ’s karitate is said to be “in his soul,” which, according to Christian theology, is a created, human soul. An indication of Ruusbroec’s understanding of the role of karitate within the soul of Christ is given in the following passage, taken from the same general section of the first book of the Brulocht as the passage on the fourfold reason for Christ’s works quoted above: This karitate held the highest powers of [Christ’s] soul in a stillness and in an enjoyment of the same blessedness which he now enjoys. And this same karitate kept him constantly directed to his Father in reverence, in minne, in praise, in adoration, in interior prayer for the needs of all men, in a dedication of all his works to the honor of his Father. This same karitate led Christ to come down in minlijc fidelity and affection to the needs of all men, whether material or spiritual needs, and thereby he gave an example to all men through his own life how they should live. He fed all men, feeding spiritually with true teaching from within those able to receive it, and feeding with miracles and wonders from without, according to the senses. And sometimes he also fed them with bodily food, when they had followed him into the wilderness and could not do without it. He made the deaf hear and the blind see, the dumb speak and the devil fly out of the possessed; he made the dead rise

Dese karitate hilt de overste crachte der zielen in eene stilheit ende in een ghebruken der zelver zalicheit diere Hi nu ghebruket. Ende dese selve karitate hiltene sonder onderlaet opgherecht te sinen Vader, met reverencien, met minnen, met love, met weerdicheiden, met innighen ghebede omme alre menschen noot, met opdraghene alle sine werken ter eeren sijns Vaders. Noch dede dese selve karitate Cristum nedervlieten met minlijcker trouwen ende met onste tot alre menschen noot, lijflijcke ende gheestelijcke; ende hier-omme gaf Hi exemple allen menschen met sinen leven hoe si leven souden. Hi spijsde alle menschen, gheestelijcke met ghewarigher leeren van binnen, dies ontfanckelijc waren; ende met mirakulen ende met wonderen van buyten na den sinnen. Ende bi wilen spijsde Hise oec met lijflijcker spisen, daer si Hem na volgheden inder woestinen ende sijs niet ontberen en mochten. Hi dede die dove hooren ende die blinde sien, die stomme spreken ende den viant

CHAPTER TWO and the crippled walk – something that one should understand both materially and spiritually. Christ our minnere worked for us both from without and from within with true fidelity. We cannot thoroughly understand his karitate because it flowed out of the boundless fount of the Holy Spirit above all creatures who have ever received karitate, for he was God and man in one person. (Br., 1: 113, 12-114, 2)

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uten menschen vlien; Hi dede die doode leven ende de cropele rechte gaen: dit sal men verstaen lijflijcke ende gheestelijcke. Cristus onse minnere hevet omme ons ghearbeyt van buyten ende van binnen in gherechter trouwen: sine karitate en moghen wij te gronde niet verstaen want si vloeyde uter grondeloser fonteynen des Heylichs Gheestes boven alle creatueren die je karitate ontfinghen, want Hi was God ende mensche in eenen persoen.

The first and most important thing to notice about karitate in this passage is that it is above all described as active. It is karitate which holds together the higher powers of Christ’s soul (elsewhere named by Ruusbroec in the Augustinian terminology of memory, understanding, and will), which constantly directs Christ reverently, lovingly, and prayerfully to the Father, and which leads Christ to act for the spiritual and temporal wellbeing of all men by feeding them, teaching them, and healing their ills. In all these ways, Christ’s karitate serves as a model or example (exemple) for the conduct of our own lives, which are accordingly to be directed not only upward to the Father in prayer and adoration, but also horizontally to our brothers and sisters in their material and spiritual needs. Clearly karitate is not radically distinct from minne, for it is called “created minne,” and it directs Christ to the Father “in minne,” leads him to attend to human needs “with minlijc fidelity and affection,” and is specifically attributed to “Christ our minnere.” Moreover, it is said to flow forth “out of the boundless fount of the Holy Spirit,” who is, as has been seen, the very minne of the Father and the Son. But by the same token karitate cannot be purely and simply identified with minne as such. At least from the passages which have been examined thus far, it seems that karitate is at most only one aspect of minne, that it is characterized not by the dual poles of werc and wesen, of activity and restful bliss, but rather by the former pole alone. This seems all the more certain inasmuch as Ruusbroec calls karitate not only the “beginning and source of all virtues”13 but a virtue in its own 13

 Br., 1: 113, 11-12: “beghin ende orspronc alre doghede.”

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right.14 It is, in other words, geared to the active pole of the Christian life, to the exercise of the virtues, whereas minne, while including that, embraces also the pole of blissful rest. Further indications of the interrelationship between minne and karitate, and the relationship of them both to liefde, will be given in the following chapter, for now that minne has been examined both within the Trinity and in its flowing out from the Trinity toward all creation, it is time to consider Ruusbroec’s description of our response to this gift. That response as it is found in what Ruusbroec calls “the active life” will be the subject of chapter three.

14  See, e.g., Br., 1: 115, 28-29, where Ruusbroec names humility, karitate, and patient suffering as the “interior virtues” (inwendighe doghen) of Christ.

PART TWO

Our Response to Minne through our Minlijc Return to the Godhead in the “Active,” “Interior,” and “Contemplative” Lives Now that minne has been considered both within the Trinity and as flowing forth to all creation, the second part of this study will consider our response to minne, our being taken up into the “ebbing” of the divine sea as it draws all things back to itself. Ruusbroec presents this response as occurring in three basic ways or “lives.” The chapters of part two will accordingly consider minne in “the active life” (chapter three), “the interior life” (chapter four), and “the contemplative life” (chapter five). These three chapters, like chapters one and two, will be primarily analytic – that is, based on a careful analysis of Ruusbroec’s terminology – and will thus provide the basis for a concluding synthesis in part three.

CHAPTER THREE

Minne in “the Active Life” Minne in the Preface to the Brulocht The opening words of Die gheestelike brulocht are a quotation from the Gospel parable of the wise and foolish virgins: “Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go forth to meet him.”1 After giving a brief summary of salvation history, in which Christ the bridegroom is portrayed as the savior of his bride, fallen human nature, Ruusbroec writes that Christ wrought our redemption so that we might “go forth” through the exercise of all virtues and “meet him in the hall of glory, endlessly enjoying his presence for eternity.”2 Ruusbroec then concludes his Preface to the treatise in the following way, showing how the quotation from Matthew’s Gospel will serve as a unifying text for all that he will write: Now Christ, the teacher of truth, speaks: “Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go forth to meet him.” Through these words, Christ our minnaere teaches us four things. In the first word he gives a command, when he says: “Behold.” Those who remain blind and neglect this command are all damned. In the second phrase he reveals to us what we are to see, namely, the coming of the bridegroom. Thirdly he teaches and commands us what we should do, when

1

Nu spreect die meester der waerheyt Cristus: “Siet, de brudegom comt; gaet ute hem jeghen.” In desen woorden leert ons Cristus onse minnaere . iiij. dinghe. Inden eersten ghevet Hi een ghebodt in dien dat Hi spreect: “Siet.” Die blint bliven ende dit ghebod versuemen, die sijn alle verdoemt. Inden anderen woorde toent Hi ons wat wij sien selen, dat es: die toecomst dies Brudegoms. Ten derden male leert Hi ons ende ghebiedt wat wij doen sullen, in dien dat

 Br., Preface: 103, 4: “Siet, de brudegom comt; gaet ute hem te ontmoete.” (Matt. 25:6)  Br., Preface: 104, 15-16: “Hem ontmoeten in die sale der glorien, ende Sijns ghebruken zonder inde inder eewicheyt.” 2

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he says: “Go forth.” In the fourth phrase, when he says, “to meet him,” he shows us the profit and benefit of all our work and all our life, namely, a minlijc meeting with the bridegroom. We wish to interpret and explain this saying in three ways. First, in a general way, as concerns the life of beginners, which is called the active life, which is necessary for all who wish to be saved. Secondly, we wish to explain the same saying as concerns the interior, exalted life of desiring, which many persons attain through virtuous living and the grace of God. Thirdly, we wish to explain it as concerns the superessential, contemplative life, which few persons can attain and savor because of the sublimity and excellence of this life. (Br., Preface: 104, 16-37)

Hi spreect: “Gaet ute.” Inden vierden woorde, daer Hi spreect: “jegen hem,” bewijst Hi ons profijt ende ende orbore al ons wercs ende al ons levens, dat es: een minlijc ontmoet des Brudegoms. Dese woorde wille wij dieden ende ontbinden in drien manieren. Inden eersten, na ghemeynre wijs, van eenen beghinnenden leven dat heetet een werkende leven, dies alle menschen noot es die behouden willen zijn. Ten anderen male willen wij dese selve woorden ontbinden van eenen innighen verhavenen begheerlijcken leven, daer vele menschen toe comen overmids doghede ende de gracie Gods. Ten derden male willen wijse verclaren van eenen overweselijcken godscouwenden levene, dat luttle menschen ghereyken in deser wijs ochte ghesmaken connen, overmids hoocheyt ende edelheyt des levens.

These lines which conclude the Preface provide the reader of the treatise with a clear insight into the importance of minne for Ruusbroec, for not only does he refer to Christ as our minnaere but he also states that the end or goal of our entire life is meant by God to be a minlijc encounter with Christ the bridegroom. A consideration of the place of minne in each of the three “lives” named above will be the theme of this and the following two chapters of this study; each of the chapters will itself be developed according to Ruusbroec’s own fourfold division of the quotation from the parable, for this is the way he divides each of the books of Die gheestelike brulocht. Minne and Karitate in Section One of Book One At the very beginning of book one of the treatise, Ruusbroec writes that just as three things are necessary for seeing with our bodily eyes (namely, the sun’s light or some other source of light, a person’s freely willing that the objects to be seen be reflected in his eyes, and eyes which

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are themselves healthy and without flaw), so too are three things necessary if we are to obey the bridegroom’s command “Behold” in a supernatural sense: the light of God’s grace, a free turning of the will to God, and a conscience unstained by mortal sin. As regards the first of these requisites, Ruusbroec distinguishes two kinds of grace: prevenient grace (die voerlopende gracie) and “the grace whereby one merits eternal life.”3 Inasmuch as God’s boundless minne is universal, extending to all persons (as was pointed out in chapter two of this study), he offers his prevenient grace to all. Examples of what Ruusbroec understands by such grace are sermons; the example, words and deeds of saints and good persons; remembrance of Christ’s sufferings; and meditation on one’s sins, on the shortness of life, and on the marvelous works of the Lord. In these and similar ways, prevenient grace prepares one to receive the other and higher form of grace; Ruusbroec assures his reader that if one does all one can to cooperate with this prevenient grace and can advance no further because of one’s weakness, then it belongs to the unfathomable goodness of God to complete the work thus begun by infusing into the soul “a higher light of God’s grace,” in which “God gives himself out of gratuitous goodness and generosity – him whom no creature can merit before possessing him.”4 Ruusbroec next discusses this higher, supernatural light and shows its relationship with the other two requisites for seeing in a supernatural way. The passage is very important for grasping Ruusbroec’s understanding of the genesis of karitate in the soul and its relationship with minne and so deserves to be cited at some length. This light is the first point, and out of this arises the second, which is on the part of the soul, namely, a free turning of the will in an instant of time; and from this, karitate springs forth in the union of God and the soul. These two points hang 3

Dit licht es dat eerste poent, ende hier-ute ontspringhet dat ander poent, ende dat es vander zielen weghen, dat es: een vri toekeer dies willen, in eenen oghen-blicke dies tijdes; ende daer ontspringhet karitate inder vereeninghen

 Br., 1: 106, 3-4: “die gracie daermen in verdient eewich leven.”  Br., 1: 108, 20-21 & 23-25: “een hogher licht der gracien Gods”; “in desen licht ghevet hem God van vrijer goeden ende meldicheiden, dien gheene creatuere verdienen en mach eer sine hevet.” 4

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together in such a way that the one cannot be completed without the other. Where God and the soul come together in a union of minne, there God gives his light of grace above time; and the soul gives its free turning by the power of this grace in a brief moment of time. From this, karitate is born in the soul, from God and from the soul, for karitate is a bond of minne between God and the minnende soul. Out of these two points, namely, out of the grace of God and the free turning of the will enlightened by grace, karitate issues forth, that is, divine minne. And out of divine minne issues the third point, which is a purifying of the conscience. These points come together in such a way that the one cannot exist for a long time without the other, for whoever has divine minne has a perfect sorrow for his sins. One may here understand the order of God and of creatures as it has here been shown: God gives his light, and by this light man gives the free and perfect conversion; from these two proceeds a perfect minne toward God, and from minne proceeds a perfect sorrow and purifying of the conscience, which occurs by considering the misdeeds and stains of the soul. Because one loves (mint) God, there arises in one a feeling of displeasure toward himself and all his works. This is the order in conversion. (Br., 1: 108, 29-109, 26)

Gods ende der zielen. Dese .ij. poente hanghen te gadere also dat dat een niet volbracht en mach werden zonder dat ander. Daer God ende de ziele vergaderen in eenicheit der minnen, daer ghevet God sijn licht der gracien boven tijt; ende de siele ghevet den vrien keer overmids crachte der gracien in eenen corten nu des tijdes: ende daer werdet karitate gheboren inder zielen, van Gode ende van der zielen; want karitate es een minnen-bandt tusschen Gode ende de minnende ziele. Ute dese .ij. poenten, dat es ute der gracien Gods ende ute vrien keere des willen verlicht met gracien, ontspringhet karitate, dat es godlijcke minne; ende ute godlijcker minnen ontspringhet dat derde poent, dat es suveringhe der conziencien. Dese poente lopen te gadere also, dat dat een niet staen en mach sonder dat ander eenighe langhe ure van tijde, want soe wie die godlijcke minne hevet, die hevet volcomenen rouwe van zonden. Doch mach men hier verstaen die ordinancie Gods ende der creatueren also alse hier bewiset es; want God ghevet sijn licht, ende overmids dit licht ghevet die mensche den willighen volcomenen keer: ute desen tween comt volcomene minne te Gode, ende ute minnen comt volcomen rouwe ende suveringhe der consiencien; ende dat ghesciet inden nedersiene op die mesdaet ende op de vlecken der zielen. Omdat hi Gode mint, soe comt in hem een meshaghen sijns selfs ende al sire werke. Dit es de ordinancie inden bekerene.

In chapter two, it was pointed out that Ruusbroec, in discussing the reason why Christ performed his works on earth, made a distinction between “divine minne” (godlijcke minne) and “created minne” (ghescapene minne) and identified karitate only with the latter. It will, indeed, be

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seen in the course of this study that Ruusbroec regularly distinguishes between karitate and minne, whether or not there is an adjective modifying the latter term. It is, then, significant that Ruusbroec does not always hold to this distinction, for in the passage cited above he at one point explicitly identifies karitate with “divine minne” and in other places makes an implicit identification, as when at one point he says that karitate issues forth when the infusion of God’s grace is met with the soul’s free turning to God, while at another point he writes that from the light of God’s grace and man’s free conversion it is “perfect minne toward God” which issues forth and which itself gives rise to the purification of one’s conscience. It should also be noted that in this particular passage it is not the active aspect of karitate as a virtue and as a source of all other virtues which is emphasized, but rather its role in the personal union between God and man. The unitive aspect of minne, both within the Trinity and between the triune God and creatures, was seen in the first chapter of this study. Here that same unitive function is ascribed to karitate, which is called a bond of minne (minnen-bandt) between God and the minnende soul. Whatever distinctions between karitate and minne appear in later analyses of passages from the Brulocht, the passage which has just been considered prohibits any attempt to see them as diametrically opposed. So closely related are the two that, here at least, Ruusbroec uses the two terms interchangeably. The clearest explanation of why this usage is not inconsistent with the distinction he makes elsewhere between “divine minne” and karitate is that in that other case “divine minne” refers to the minne of God toward us, whereas in the passage here under consideration Ruusbroec’s identification of karitate with “divine minne” is in the context of our minne toward God, as indicated by the statement that from the conjunction of the light of God’s grace and man’s freely turning to God “there proceeds a perfect minne toward God.” It is important, however, to note that this movement of karitate or “perfect minne toward God” is in fact the movement back to God of the same minne with which he has first loved us. It has already been seen in the second chapter of this study that Ruusbroec writes of God as one who “has poured his grace and his minne into our souls” (Br., 2: 154, 21-22) and that he furthermore writes at one point of karitate’s flowing

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forth “out of the boundless fount of the Holy Spirit,” who is the minne of the Father and the Son (Br., 1: 113, 34-114, 1). This indicates not only that we respond in some way or other to God’s minne toward us, but that we do so with the radically selfsame minne, in accordance with such Scriptural passages as St. Paul’s saying that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5) or the conclusion of Jesus’ high priestly prayer in the Fourth Gospel, where he prays that the love with which the Father has loved him may also be in those whom the Father has given him (John 17:26). That basic image which Ruusbroec uses of God – the image of the flowing and ebbing sea – could, then, with like validity be used of minne, flowing out into all creation and drawing it back to its divine source. After some remarks on sorrow for sin and the qualities of a sincere confession of sins, Ruusbroec concludes this first section of book one by saying that if a person possesses these three realities of God’s grace, free conversion, and a pure conscience, then Christ is saying to him, “Behold,” and he is indeed beholding. Minne and Karitate in Section Two of Book One Ruusbroec opens the second section of this first book by referring to the second phrase of his chosen text, “the bridegroom is coming,” and by saying that there are three such comings which he will consider: the first coming, when Christ became man for our sake, out of minne; a second coming, in which Christ comes daily into each minnende heart with new graces and gifts according to each person’s ability to receive them; and a third coming, in which Christ will come to judge the living and the dead.5 The significance of minne and karitate as regards the first coming has already been treated in considerable detail in the second chapter of this study. Ruusbroec’s treatment of the second coming is relatively short, but several of his statements concerning this coming are relevant to the present study. In introducing the entire second section of the book, 5

 Br., 1: 110, 7-19.

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Ruusbroec writes that the second coming of the bridegroom occurs “daily – often and repeatedly – in each minnende heart, with new graces, with new gifts, according as each person is able to receive them,”6 whereas when he begins to treat this second coming in greater detail Ruusbroec makes a slight change in the way he describes the person to whom Christ comes: “The second coming of Christ our bridegroom occurs daily – often and repeatedly – in good men, with graces and new gifts, in all those who prepare themselves for it according to their ability.”7 The unobtrusive and perhaps not consciously intended change on Ruusbroec’s part in referring to the recipient of these graces as minnende in the one case and “good” (goed) in the other is nevertheless an indication that for him the real core of goodness within a person is to be found in the presence of minne in that person. Ruusbroec then describes this second coming by means of the image of a deep valley which, by receiving the sun’s light reflected from high mountains on either side, actually receives more heat and becomes more fruitful than plain and level land. To this valley Ruusbroec likens the truly humble person, who by confessing his poverty and helplessness apart from God moves Christ to shed the light of his grace upon the depths of this humble heart. “Then,” writes Ruusbroec, “this valley, the humble heart, receives three things: it becomes more radiant and enlightened with grace, and more ardent in karitate, and more fruitful in perfect virtues and good works.”8 The context does not allow one to specify more exactly the nature of the karitate mentioned in this passage, but its association with grace, perfect virtues, and good works does at least indicate its centrality in “the active life” according to Ruusbroec.

6  Br., 1: 110, 15-17: “Die andere toecomst die es daghelijcs dicke ende menichwerven in elcke minnende herte, met nuwer gracien, met nuwen gaven, na dats de mensche ontfanclijc es.” 7  Br., 1: 116, 7-10: “Die ander toecomst Cristi ons Brudegoms die ghesciet daghelijcs in goede menschen, dicke ende menichwerven, met gracien ende met nuwen gaven, in alle die-gheene diere hem toe voeghen na haren vermoghen.” 8  Br., 1: 117, 24-27: “Dan ontfaet dit dal, dat oetmoedighe Herte, .iij. dinghe: het wert meer verclaert ende verlicht met gracien, ende meer verhit in karitaten, ende vrochtbaerre in volcomenen doechden ende in goeden werken.”

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The same centrality, of both minne and karitate, is evident in Ruusbroec’s treatment of the third coming, that of Christ as judge. Ruusbroec writes that five classes of persons must appear at the judgment and that of these the worst are Christians who have died in a state of mortal sin, thereby despising the death of Christ and his sacraments. These persons, he writes, “have not practiced the works of mercy in karitate toward their neighbors according to God’s commandments, and therefore they are damned deepest in hell.”9 A similar reason is given for the damnation of the next group, the unbelievers, who must likewise appear before the divine judge even though “they were already damned all their days on earth, for they had neither grace nor divine minne. For this reason, they constantly lived in the eternal death of the damned, but they will suffer less than evil Christians, for they received fewer gifts from God and owe him less fidelity.”10 The third group are those Christians who have repented of their sins but without having made full satisfaction for them on earth; they must make further satisfaction in purgatory. Just as a lack of minne or karitate is a major reason for the damnation of the first two groups, so too is the presence of karitate named as a reason why those in the fourth and fifth groups go directly to heaven at the time of death. Of the fourth, Ruusbroec says that they are those “who have kept God’s commandments or, if they have broken them, have turned back to God in sorrow and penitence and with works of karitate and mercy, and have made satisfaction so as to go directly to heaven without purgatory,”11 and of the fifth that they are those “who, over and above all external works of karitate, have their conversation in heaven and are united and sunken 9  Br., 1: 120, 4-7: “Ende si en hebben die werke van ontfarmherticheden in karitaten niet gheoefent ane haren evenkersten na den ghebode Gods, ende hieromme sijn si diepst inder hellengront verdoemt.” 10  Br., 1: 120, 9-15: “Nochtan warense al hare leefdaghe verdoemt: want si en hadden nie gracie noch godlijcke minne: daer-omme woendense altoes in die eeuwighe doot der verdoemenissen. Maer si zelen min ghepijnt werden dan quade kerstene menscen, want si men ghaven van Gode ontfanghen hadden ende men trouwen Gode schuldich sijn.” 11  Br., 1: 120, 19-25: “Die vierde partije, dat sijn die menschen die Gods ghebode ghehouden hebben, ochte hebbe sise oec te-broken, sij sijn weder-ghekeert te Gode met rouwe ende met penitencien ende met werken van karitaten ende van ontfarmicheden, ende hebben volbracht die penitencie alsoe dat si zonder vaghevier van monde te hemele varen.”

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in God and God in them, so that between God and them nothing intervenes except time and the condition of mortality. When these are freed from the body, in the same moment they enjoy their eternal blessedness, and they will not be judged, but on the last day they will pass judgment with Christ upon the others.”12 These last two citations not only show clearly the importance which Ruusbroec gives to karitate in the Christian life but also bring out once more its connection with good works, with the exercise of the virtues, for he here writes of the fourth group’s “works of karitate and mercy” and of the fifth group’s having something over and above the practice of “external works of karitate.” This provides further confirmation of the conclusion tentatively advanced in chapter two of this study, namely, that karitate is regularly understood by Ruusbroec in terms of activity, werc. A sentence from the concluding paragraph of this second section of the first book of the Brulocht helps clarify this relationship of karitate with virtuous activity, for Ruusbroec there writes that we will imitate the first coming of Christ in two ways, “exteriorly through the perfect practice of the virtues and interiorly through karitate and true humility.”13 In this context, karitate is not so much an activity in the sense of “good works,” as rather a disposition giving rise to such good works, something which Ruusbroec elsewhere calls one of the “interior virtues” (inwendighe doghen).14 A much more thorough discussion of the relationship of karitate with other virtues is provided by Ruusbroec in the third section of his first book, the section corresponding to the phrase “Go forth.” It is this section which will next be considered. 12  Br., 1: 120, 25-33: “Die vijfte paertije, dat sijn die-gheene die boven alle uutwendighe werke van karitaten hare wandelinghe hebben in den hemel, ende vereenicht ende versoncken sijn in Gode, ende God in hem, alsoe dat tuschen God ende hem niet en middelt dan tijt ende staet der sterfelijcheit. Alse dese ontbonden werden van den lichame, inden selven oghenblicke ghebrukense haer eewighe zalicheit. Ende si en werden niet gheoordeelt, maer si zullen oordeel gheven ten lesten daghe met Cristo over die ander menschen.” 13  Br., 1: 121, 11-14: “diere toecomst selen wij volgen van buyten met volcomenen seden der doochden, ende van binnen met karitaten ende met ghewarigher oetmoedicheit.” 14  Br., 1: 115, 28-29.

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Minne and Karitate in Section Three of Book One Ruusbroec clarifies the transition to the third section in the following passage, which likewise announces a threefold manner of “going forth,” just as there were previously three requisites for “beholding” and three “comings of the bridegroom”: If you have the first point, which is that you behold in grace and in karitate, and if you have rightly observed your model, Christ, and his going forth, then there springs forth in you, out of karitate and out of a minlijc observation of your bridegroom, a righteousness such that you desire to follow him in virtues. Then Christ says to you, “Go forth.” This going forth must be in three ways. We must go forth to God and to ourselves and to our neighbor, and this must be with karitate and righteousness. For karitate constantly strives upwards to the kingdom of God, that is, to God himself, for he is the source from which it has flowed forth without intermediary and in which it remains by way of union. Righteousness, which derives from karitate, wills to perfect all the habits and all the virtues which are honorable and profitable for the kingdom of God, that is, the kingdom of the soul. These two, that is, karitate and righteousness, lay a foundation in the kingdom of the soul wherein God is to dwell, and this foundation is humility. These three virtues bear all the weight and the edifice of all the virtues and of all excellence. (Br., 1: 121, 32-122, 19)

Hebdi dat eerste poent, dat ghi siende sijt in gracien ende in karitaten, ende hebdi te rechte wel ghemerket uwen exemplaer Cristum ende sijn uutgaen, soe ontspringhet in u, ute karitaten ende ute minlijcken merkene uwen Brudegom, eene gherechticheit, dat ghi Hem begheert te volghene in duechden. Dan spreect Cristus in u: Gaet ute. Dit uutgaen moet sijn in .iij. manieren. Wij moeten uutgaen te Gode ende tot ons selven ende te onsen evenkersten, ende dit moet sijn met karitaten ende met gherechticheden. Want karitate crighet altoes opweert tot den rijcke Gods, dat es God selve, want Hi es de oorspronc daer si zonder middel ute ghevloten es, ende overmids eeninge in-blivende es. Gherechtichede die ute karitaten ontsprinct wilt alle die zeden ende alle die duechde volvoeren die den rijcke Gods, dat es der zielen, eerlijc ende tamelijc sijn. Dese twee, dat es karitate ende gherechticheit, leghen een fondament inden rijke der zielen, daer God in woenen sal, ende dit fundament es oetmoedicheit. Dese .iij. doechde draghen al den last ende dat ghestichte alder duechde ende alre edelheit.

Ruusbroec does not at this point provide a more thorough consideration of this righteousness which derives from karitate, but he does so somewhat later in this same third section by writing of it in terms of the

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beatitude “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs” (Matthew 5: 10; Br., 1: 135, 26-27). Ruusbroec sees such persecution as arising from the three adversaries of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and looks upon righteousness as the virtue which enables us to have “the upper hand” (die overhant) in all the works of virtue. Toward the end of the following chapter of this study it will be seen that Ruusbroec, when discussing the three manners of union with God “without intermediary,” calls the third of these “an interior life according to righteousness” (een inwindich leven nader gherechticheit). In that section of the Brulocht righteousness connotes a concomitance or simultaneity of rest and activity; that connotation, while not contradictory to anything said about righteousness in “the active life,” is nevertheless not yet explicit in this first book of the treatise. Ruusbroec goes on to write that since he has named humility as the foundation laid by karitate and righteousness, it is of this virtue that he will speak first. Yet even in his discussion of humility there are indications that he in fact considers minne just as foundational, as in the following passage, where he speaks not merely of “the humble heart,” but twice of the person or heart that is both “humble” and minnende: When the humble, minnende person perceives that God has served him so humbly, so minlijc and so faithfully, and that God is so powerful and high and excellent, and man so poor and little and lowly, there springs forth in the humble heart a very great reverence and veneration of God, for to pay homage to God with all one’s works, interior and exterior, is the dearest and first work of humility, and the most delectable work of karitate, and the most fitting work of righteousness. For the minnende, humble heart cannot offer enough homage to God or to his noble humanity, nor can it set itself as low as it would like. (Br., 1: 123, 6-19)

Alse de oetmoedighe minnende mensche merket dat hem God ghedient heeft soe oetmoedelijcke, so minlijcke ende soe ghetrouwelijcke; ende God dan soe machtich es ende soe hoghe ende soe edel, ende de mensce soe arme ende soe cleyne es ende so neder: hieraf ontspringhet in dat oetmoedighe herte soe grote reverencie ende weerdicheit te Gode; want Gode eere bieden met allen wercken van binnen ende van buyten, dat es dat ghelostichste werc ende dat eerste der oetmoedicheyt, ende alre smakelijcst der karitaten, ende alre behoorlijcst der gherechticheit. Want de minnende oetmoedighe herte en can Gode niet ghenoech eeren ghebieden noch sire edelre menscheit; noch hare selven niet neder ghenoech ghesetten na hare begheerte.

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Ruusbroec next describes a progression of other virtues resting upon this foundation, each proceeding from the one named before it. Thus, humility is said to give rise to obedience, obedience to renunciation of self-will, renunciation of self-will to patience, patience to meekness, meekness to kindness, kindness to compassion, compassion to generosity, generosity to good zeal, good zeal to temperance and sobriety, and temperance and sobriety to purity. The purposes of the present study do not call for a detailed examination of what he writes about each of these virtues, but there are several passages which do shed further light on Ruusbroec’s understanding of minne and karitate. For one thing, it is worth noting that there is a reciprocal relationship between karitate and other virtues. Although karitate and righteousness are said to engender humility, and although karitate is said to preserve the patient person’s equanimity in the face of hardships (“for he has placed himself under God’s will in righteous karitate”15), the following passage is an example of how Ruusbroec sees other virtues as strengthening karitate: Through gentleness and kindness karitate remains alive and fruitful in a person. For the heart which is full of kindness is like a lamp full of fine oil, for the oil of kindness enlightens the erring sinner with good example and salves and heals with comforting words and deeds those who are bruised of heart or afflicted or angered. And it burns and brightly enlightens in the fire of karitate those who are virtuous, and neither dislike nor ill-will can touch it. (Br., 1: 127, 7-16)

Overmids ghenadicheit ende goedertierenheit blijft de karitate levendich ende vrochtbaer in den mensche. Want dat herte dat vol es goedertierenheiden, es ghelijc der lampten vol edelre olien: want die olie der goedertierenheit die lichtet den verdoelden zondaren met goeden exemplen, ende si salvet ende ganset die ghequetst sijn van herten ende bedroevet ocht verbolghen, met troostelijcken woorden ende werken. Ende si bernet ende licht clare den-gheenen die in dogheden sijn in brande der karitaten, ende hare en mach niet gherinen mesmoghen ochte ononsticheit.

The way in which karitate and minne extend their embrace to all persons, and not just to those toward whom we feel a natural affection, is clear in Ruusbroec’s discussion of compassion, mercy, and generosity. 15  Br., 1: 126, 5-6: “Want hi hevet hem ghelaten onder den wille Gods in gherechter caritaten.”

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Thus, at the beginning of the section on generosity he writes: “From this mercy comes generosity, for no one except the merciful can be supernaturally generous with a fidelity and affection reaching toward all in common, although one might give generously to particular persons, to whom one is well-disposed, without karitate and supernatural generosity,”16 while just a few lines previously he makes a similar observation about minne: “This work of compassion and universal minne overcomes and drives out the third deadly sin, which is hate and envy. For compassion is a wounding of the heart; minne makes it universal toward all persons and it cannot be healed as long as any human suffering exists.”17 It has already been seen in the section on Christ’s coming as judge that the presence or absence of minne or karitate is a fundamental criterion. This same criterion, at least as regards minne, is evident in several passages of the section of the Brulocht now under consideration. Ruusbroec writes that it was of persons of good zeal that Christ spoke the beatitude, “Blessed are you who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for you will be satisfied,” and adds that this satisfaction will occur “when God’s glory shall be revealed to them and shall fill each one according to the degree of his minne and righteousness.”18 So, too, in his treatment of purity is there an indication that minne is the highest and most perfect motive for the practice of this or any virtue, for Ruusbroec writes that “one likens purity of body to the whiteness of the lilies and to the purity of the angels; in its withstanding of temptation, [one likens it] to the redness of the roses and the nobility of the martyrs; if one practices it out of minne for the honor of God, then it is perfected, and then one 16

 Br., 1: 129, 6-10: “Ute deser ontfermicheit comt meldicheit. Want nieman en mach overnatuerlijcke melde sijn met ghemeynre trouwen ende met onste dan die ontfarmhertich es, al machmen zonderlinghe personen, dien mens ant, wel meldelijcke gheven zonder karitate ende zonder overnatuerlijcke meldicheit.” 17  Br., 1: 128, 30-35: “Dit werc der compassien ende der ghemeynre minnen verwint ende verdrivet de derde dootzonde, dat es haet ende nijt. Want compassie es eene quetsure der herten die minne maect ghemeyne tot allen menschen, ende niet ghenesen en mach also langhe alse enighe doghet inden mensce levet.” 18  Br., 1: 131, 7-9: “als die glorie Gods hem oppenbaren sal, ende yeghewelcken vervullen na mate sire minnen ende sire gherechticheit.”

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likens it to the sunflowers, for it is one of the highest adornments of nature.”19 Two other points may briefly be made in connection with Ruusbroec’s discussion of the various virtues resting on the foundation of humility. In his treatment of generosity, it becomes clear for the first time in the Brulocht that the verb minnen may be directed to a less-than-worthy object, for he there writes that “whoever is generous and does not love (mint) worldly things, however poor he be, is like God, for all that is within him and his feelings are a flowing-forth and a giving.”20 This passage leads one to suspect that Ruusbroec may also at times use the noun minne in a similar way, something that will be seen to occur occasionally in the second book of the Brulocht. Secondly, it is in the section of the treatise here under consideration that Ruusbroec for the first time in the Brulocht uses any form of the term liefde. After stating that meekness gives rise to kindness, he goes on to say that “this kindness makes a person present a minlijc appearance and give liefelijc answers and do every kind deed to those who are quarrelsome, hoping that they might recognize themselves and reform.”21 From this short passage there is no clear way of distinguishing minlijc and liefelijc; indeed, the two terms here seem to be used synonymously. The noun liefde will be seen to be used twice further on in this first book of the treatise and then much more frequently in the second book, usually in clear differentiation from minne. Ruusbroec concludes the third section of the first book with an allegorical depiction of the soul as a kingdom, ruled by free will as king. This king is said to “be crowned with a crown whose name is karitate”22 and 19  Br., 1: 134, 5-11: “Reynicheit des lives ghelijctmen der witheit der lelyen ende der puerheit der inghele; inden wederstaene, der rootheit der rosen ende der edelheit der martelaren; in dien datment van minnen God ter eeren doet, soe eest volmaect, ende soe ghelijcktment der goutbloemen, want het es een die hoochste cierheit der natueren.” 20  Br., 1: 130, 7-10: “die melde es, ende eertsche dinghe niet en mint, hoe arm hi es, hi es Gode ghelijc; want alle sine inwendicheit ende sijn ghevoelen dat es ute-vloeyen ende gheven.” 21  Br., 1: 127, 3-7: “Dese goedertierenheit doet den mensce gheven minlijc ghelaet ende liefelijcke antworde ende alle godertierne werke den-gheenen die verbolghen sijn, eest dat hi hopet dat si hem bekinnen ende beteren selen.” 22  Br., 1: 136, 7-8: “Die sal ghecroont sijn met eenre cronen die heet karitate.”

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“to bow his crowned head with liefde before the most high king [i.e., God] with devoted yearning. That is the proper activity of karitate.”23 Here again there is no clear distinction between liefde and either of the other Middle Dutch words that could be translated into English as “love.” In the passage just cited, the term refers to an attitude or disposition associated with dedication, devotion, self-giving. A clearer comprehension of liefde will have to await further uses of the term. This allegorical passage ends with Ruusbroec’s claim that whoever has ordered his soul in accordance with the virtues described in this section of the treatise “has gone forth with minne and with virtues to God and to himself and to his neighbor. This is the third of the four main points.”24 Just as in the second section of this first book it was above all out of minne that the bridegroom was said to have become man in his first coming, just as his daily coming was regularly said to be “in each minnende heart,” and just as the presence or absence of minne was said to be a basic criterion at his third coming as judge, so too in this third section is minne predominant. It is from “the humble, minnende person” that all the other virtues are said to proceed, and once these have all been described Ruusbroec concludes that this “going forth” to God, to oneself, and to one’s neighbor is done “with minne and with virtues.” Since Ruusbroec has already been seen to claim that the goal of this going forth is “a minlijc meeting with the bridegroom,” it is to be expected that a similarly central importance will be attributed to minne in the fourth and final section of the first book. Minne and Liefde in Section Four of Book One The Three Ways of Meeting the Bridegroom In this fourth section, Ruusbroec once more adopts a threefold division of his material; to the three requisites for beholding, the three comings of the bridegroom, and the three persons or classes to whom one 23  Br., 1: 136, 17-19: “sijn ghecroonde hovet met liefden te neyghene vore den oversten Coninc met toeghevoechder begheerlijcheit: dat es eyghen werc der karitaten.” 24  Br., 1: 137, 24-26: “hi is ute ghegaen met minnen ende met doechden te Gode ende te hem selven ende te sinen evenkersten. Dit es dat derde poent vanden .iiij. principalen.”

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goes forth, there now correspond three ways of meeting the bridegroom, named by Ruusbroec in the following, introductory paragraph to this section: Whoever wishes to meet Christ as his gheminde bridegroom and to possess eternal life in him and with him, must now in time meet Christ in three points or in three manners. The first point is that he must intend God in all things wherein he is to merit eternal life. The second point is that he neither think about nor love (minne [a subjunctive form of the verb]) anything above God or equally to God. The third point is that he rest in God with all zeal above all creatures and above all God’s gifts and above all virtuous works and above all feelings that God may infuse into soul or body. (Br., 1: 138, 4-15)

Soe wie Cristum ontmoeten wilt alse sinen gheminden Brudegom, ende besitten wilt in Hem ende met Hem eewich leven, hi moet nu inder tijt Cristum ontmoeten in drie poente ochte in drie manieren. Dat eerst poent es dat hi Gode meynen moet in allen dingen daer hi eeuwich leven in verdienen sal. Dat ander poent es dat hi niet daer-bi en sette dat hi boven Gode oft ghelijc Gode meyne ochte minne. Dat derde poent es dat hi in Gode ruste met allen vliete boven alle creatueren ende boven alle Gods gaven ende boven alle doochdelijcke werke ende boven alle ghevoelen dat God storten mach in ziele ende in lijf.

It is in his discussion of the first of these three ways of meeting Christ that Ruusbroec, for the first time in the Brulocht, gives a rather clear indication of the specific nature of liefde. He writes: To intend God is to see God spiritually. To this intending belong also liefde and minne. For to know and see God without liefde has no savor and neither helps nor advances us. Therefore one will constantly incline toward God with minne in all one’s works, intending and loving (mint) him above all things. This is what it means to meet God with intention and with minne. (Br., 1: 139, 1-8)

Gode meynen, dat es gheestelijcke Gode sien. Tot deser meyninghen behoret oec liefde ende minne. Want Gode bekinnen ende sien zonder liefde, dat en smaect niet noch en hulpet noch en vordert. Hier-omme sal de mensche altoes op Gode neyghen met minnen in alle sinen werken, Dien hi meynt ende mint boven alle dinc. Dit es Gode ontmoeten met meininghen ende met minnen.

Here, just as in the earlier consideration of the relationship between minne and karitate, it is clear that the two are not diametrically opposed. If they were, Ruusbroec would logically have had to use the term liefde

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rather than minne in the fourth sentence of the passage cited above, for it is of the importance of liefde that he is speaking in the preceding sentence. He is, then, clearly using the two terms quite synonymously in this passage, but even so there is a nuance which will appear still more emphatically in later passages of the Brulocht and lead to the conclusion that there is a basic distinction between minne and liefde after all. The key statement in this regard is that “to know and see God without liefde has no savor.” In itself, this association of liefde with “savor” would be of no special significance, but this is in fact only the first of many references in which liefde will be explicitly associated with the whole realm of feelings, sensations, emotions. As such, it will at most be only one aspect of minne, not fundamentally identical with it. There is another passage in Ruusbroec’s discussion of the first manner of meeting the bridegroom which is relevant to the present study. Although he earlier wrote of humility as “the foundation” of the virtues, he now writes that the foundation of the virtues is “faith, hope, and minne, and the good will to practice all the virtues.”25 The important thing is not to reconcile the two statements, since from different points of view they are both theologically correct, but rather to note that Ruusbroec uses the term minne for the third of the New Testament triad of faith, hope, and agapē. This is an important indication that for him it is minne, rather than karitate or liefde, which corresponds to what St. Paul describes in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians as the most excellent way of leading the Christian life and to what the First Letter of John teaches is the preeminent way of abiding in God and having God abide in us. The importance of minne in the second way of meeting Christ is clear from Ruusbroec’s description of this way in the introductory paragraph already cited: that one “neither think about nor love (minne) anything above God or equally to God.” In the body of this final section Ruusbroec scarcely elaborates on this description, saying only that anything else intended in our actions must be ordered to God as our final end and not be contrary to him or given an importance equal to him. 25  Br., 1: 139, 14-16: “Ende hi ontfeet [receives] dat fondament alre doechde: ghelove, hope ende minne, ende goetwillicheit tot allen duechden.”

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It is important for grasping the teaching of Ruusbroec in the Brulocht to note well that the third and final way of meeting Christ in “the active life” does not involve activity, but rest. He writes that “one will also rest upon the one and in the one whom one intends and loves (mint) more than upon all the messengers he sends, which are his gifts,”26 and again, somewhat more emphatically, that “above all this [the reference is to “good works and virtuous activity”], the soul will rest in its gheminde above all multiplicity.”27 That “certain hierarchy of value” which was noted at the end of chapter one of this study as regards the two poles of activity and passivity, of multiplicity and unity, of desiring quest and blissful rest, appears already in that book of the treatise whose explicit theme is “activity.” The Conclusion of Book One This priority which Ruusbroec gives to the pole of unity and rest is evident in even greater detail in the short section which concludes the entire first book of the Brulocht and which can be considered as a transitional passage to the second book. Ruusbroec writes that the person who lives in the way described earlier in this first book, offering all that he is and does to God, intending and loving him above all things, will frequently be moved by the desire “to see and to know Christ his bridegroom as he is in himself; although he knows him in his works, that seems to him not sufficient.”28 Ruusbroec compares such a person to Zacchaeus in the Gospel, climbing a tree so as to be able to see the Lord as he passed. The concluding part of the comparison is as follows: Behold, Jesus comes and sees this person and addresses him in the light of faith, saying that in his divinity he is

Hier comt Jhesus, ende siet den mensche, ende spreect hem ane in lichte des gheloofs: dat Hi na sire godheit

26  Br., 1: 140, 12-14: “Men sal oec rusten opden-Ghenen ende inden-Ghenen diemen meynt ende mint, meer dan op al sijn boden di Hi sindet dat sijn sine gaven.” 27  Br., 1: 140, 18-19: “Boven al dit sal die ziele rusten in haren Gheminden boven alle menichfuldicheit.” 28  Br., 1: 141: 20-22: “Cristum sinen Brudegom te siene ende te kinnen, wie Hi is in Hem selven: al kint hine in sinen werken, dat en dunct hem niet ghenoech.”

CHAPTER THREE immeasurable and incomprehensible and inaccessible and unfathomable, transcending every created light and every finite concept. This is the highest knowledge of God that one can have in the active life: that he acknowledge in the light of faith that God is incomprehensible and unknowable. In this light, Christ speaks to man’s desire: “Come down quickly, for today I must abide in your house.” This quick descent is nothing other than a flowing down with desire and with minne into the abyss of the Godhead, which no intelligence can reach in created light. But where understanding remains without, there enter desire and minne. When the soul thus inclines with minne and intent toward God above all that it understands, it hereby rests in God and God in it. When the soul longingly rises above the multiplicity of creatures and above the working of the senses and above the natural light, then it meets Christ in the light of faith. And it is enlightened and confesses that God is unknowable and incomprehensible. When it tends with longing toward this incomprehensible God, then it meets Christ and is filled with his gifts. When it loves (mint) and rests above all gifts and above itself and above all creatures, then it lives in God and God in it. This is how we are to meet Christ in the highest level of the active life. (Br., 1: 142, 2-29)

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onghemeten is, ende ombegripelijc, ende ontoeganclijc, ende afgrondich, ende onthoghende allen ghescapenen lichte ende allen ghemetenen begripe. Dat es dat hoochste kinnisse Gods dat de mensche hebben mach in werkende levene: dat hi dat bekinne in lichte dies gheloofs, dat God ombegripelijc is ende ombekinlijc. In desen lichte spreect Cristus tot der begheerten des menschen: “ganc neder haestelijc, want Mij behoret heden te woenen in dinen huyse.” Dit nedergaen haestelijc en es anders niet dan een nedervlieten met begherten ende met minnen inden afgront der Godheit, dat gheen verstaen in ghescapenen lichte ghereyken en kan. Maer daer verstannisse buyten blivet, daer gheet begheerte ende minne in. Daer die siele haer aldus neyghet met minnen ende met meyninghen in Gode boven al dat si versteet, hier-met rustet si ende woent in Gode, ende God in hare. Daer die ziele met begheerten opclemt boven menichfoldicheit der creatueren ende boven werc der zenne, ende boven licht der natueren, daer ontmoetse Cristum in lichte des gheloofs. Ende si wert verclaert, ende si bekint dat God ombekinlijc ende ombegripelijc es. Daer si hare met begheerten tot dien ombegripelijcken God neyghet, daer ontmoet si Cristum ende wert vervult van sinen gaven. Daer si mint ende rust boven alle gaven ende boven haer selven ende boven alle creatueren, daer woent si in Gode ende God in hare. Dit es hoe wij Cristum ontmoeten selen in dat hoochste van werkenden levene.

There is certainly in Ruusbroec no disdaining of virtuous activity. In the sentence immediately following the passage just cited, he speaks of the necessity of constructing the edifice of the virtues on the foundation

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of humility, righteousness, and karitate. Nor is there any disdaining of the powers of the understanding provided that they do not seek to overstep their limits and comprehend the incomprehensible God. At the same time, it is abundantly clear that there is a further, even “higher” level to which one may rightly aspire, a level where “understanding remains without,” where lovingly resting in God “above all gifts [of God] and above oneself and above all creatures” is explicitly said to be “the highest level of the active life.” The rather frequent references to minne in the passage cited above show clearly that it is only through and in minne that one can be raised to this level, where one’s concern is no longer with the multiple objects of the created world, however important they might be, but rather with God himself, God abiding in us and we in him. Ruusbroec does not quote Scripture directly in this reference to God’s living in us and our living in him, but the Scriptural allusions – above all to the Last Supper discourse in the Fourth Gospel – are obvious. In that discourse Jesus prays to the Father that all who believe “may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one” (John 17:22-23), even as he also promises that “if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). This doctrine, paralleled by those passages in St. Paul where God’s Spirit is said to dwell in us (e.g., Romans 8:9 and I Cor. 3:16 & 6:19), has from the beginning been one of the most important themes of Christian mysticism. That Ruusbroec should refer to it in the final, climactic lines of the opening book of the Brulocht is an indication of its importance in his own mysticism and allows one to conclude that of the various aspects of minne which have been pointed out in the course of this chapter on “the active life,” the most fundamental is that of disposing oneself for personal union and communion with God. As Ruusbroec writes at the very end of book one, if one has laid a firm foundation for the virtues “and if you have met Christ in faith, in intent, and in minne, then you live in God and God in you, and you have acquired the active life. And this is the first thing of which we wished to speak.”29 29  Br., 1: 142, 32-34: “ende hebdi Cristum ontmoet met ghelove, met meyninghen ende met minne, soe woendi in Gode ende God in u, ende ghi hebt beseten een werkende leven. Ende dit es dat eerste daer wij af spreken wouden.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Minne in “the Interior Life” Introductory Remarks: The Distinction between “the Active Life” and “the Interior Life” Although Ruusbroec speaks of “the active life” as one for beginners and says that many persons proceed to “the interior life,” it would be altogether wrong to conclude from this that these latter persons may then abandon the works, the practice of the virtues, about which Ruusbroec writes at considerable length in the first book of the Brulocht. The difference between the two lives lies not in the amount of virtuous activity, but in one’s attitude or state of mind toward such activity, as is clear from the following passage from the second book of the treatise: Nevertheless a person … remains constantly in the active life if he keeps himself active in busyness of heart and in manifold works more than in attending to the cause and reason for the works. And if he is concerned with sacramental practices and with the signs and outward customs more than with the reality and truth which are thereby signified, then he remains constantly an exterior person and will be saved through the works which he performs with singleness of intention. And therefore if a person wishes to draw nearer to God and to bring his activity and life to a higher level, then he must proceed inward from the works to the reason [for the works] and from the signs to the truth [which they signify]. In this way he will become

Nochtan blivet hi altoes … in eenen werkenden levene, eest dat hem die mensche meer houdet ende oefent in onleden van herten ende in menichfuldighen werken dan in die sake ende in de waeromme der werken. Ende blivet hi meer met oefeninghen op de sacramente ende op de teekene ende op de costumen van buyten dan inder saken ende inder waerheit die daer-mede beteekent es, soe blivet hi altoes een uutweindich mensche, ende in sinen werken met eenvuldigher meyninghen blivet hi behouden. Ende hier-omme, eest dat de mensche Gode naken wilt ende verhoghen sine oefeninghe ende sijn leven, soe moet hi ingaen van den werken toe der waeromme, ende vanden

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the master of his works and a knower of the truth, and will enter upon the interior life. (Br., 2: 212, 1-15)

teekenen toe der waerheit. Soe wert hi meester sire werke ende bekinnere der waerheit, ende comt in een innich leven.

The movement from “the active life” to “the interior life” is, then, a matter of gradually freeing oneself from a distracted and distracting absorption in a multiplicity of works, from what Ruusbroec calls “busyness of heart,” but not at all a matter of abandoning the works themselves. For this reason, it would be more accurate to say that “the active life” is taken up into and transformed by “the interior life” than to say that one purely and simply gives up the earlier life. As will become clearer later in this chapter, especially when considering Ruusbroec’s treatment of the gift of understanding, the more deeply a person is immersed in God, the more fruitful will that person be in good works, even as God himself is always at rest yet ever active. This is why Ruusbroec, for all his praise of blissfully resting in God, was nevertheless a most energetic opponent of those persons whom we would call the quietists of his day, though he himself does not apply so specific a term to them. The crucial distinction between true practitioners of “the interior life” and such quietists is evident in the following passages from the second book of the Brulocht, the first of these passages indicating that it is precisely the minnende person’s karitate which helps preserve him from quietism: All creatures are naturally inclined to rest, and therefore rest is sought by the good and the bad in many a way. Now note, whenever a person is bare and imageless in his senses, and empty and without activity in his higher powers, he enters into rest by mere nature. All persons can find and possess this rest in themselves by nature alone, without the grace of God, provided only that they can empty themselves of images and all activity, but the minnende person cannot rest in this, for karitate and the interior stirring of the grace of God do not lie idle. Therefore the interior person cannot

Alle creatueren sijn natuerlijcke gheneyghet tot rasten, ende hier-omme werdet raste ghesocht van goeden ende van quaden in menigher wijs. Nu merket, soe wanneer de mensce bloet ende onverbeeldet es na den zennen, ende ledich sonder werc na den hoochsten crachten, soe comt hi van bloter natueren in rasten. Ende dese rasten moghen alle menschen vinden ende besitten in hem selven in bloeter natueren, sonder de gracie Gods, eest dat si hen ledighen connen van beelden ende van allen werken. Maer hier en mach de minnende mensce niet in rasten,

CHAPTER FOUR for long remain within himself in natural rest. (Br., 2: 228, 20-32)

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want de karitate ende dat inwindighe rueren der gracien Gods en leghet niet stille. Ende hier-omme en mach die innighe mensce in hem selven in natuerlijcker rasten niet langhe ghedueren.

What Ruusbroec considers the worst degree of quietism is portrayed in the following lines, describing a way of life whose relation to virtuous activity is just the opposite of that which is characteristic of “the interior life”: They think this idleness to be so wonderful that one should not hinder it with any works, however good they be, for the idleness is nobler than all virtues. And therefore they remain in a pure passivity without any work directed either above or below, just like the tool that is itself idle and is ready for its master whenever he wishes to work. For if they performed any work, then God would be hindered in his working. And therefore they are empty of every virtue, and so empty that they do not wish to thank or praise God, and they have neither knowledge or minne or will or prayer or desire, for they think that they already possess everything that they could pray for or desire … . Although they manifest it outwardly in appearance, they are inwardly subservient to no one, neither in will nor in deeds, for they are empty of all this in every way that the holy Church practices. And therefore they say: “As long as a person strives after virtue and desires to do the liefst will of God, he is still an imperfect person, for he still is amassing virtue and knows nothing of this spiritual poverty or of this emptiness.” (Br., 2: 233, 10-12 & 234, 1-9)

Hem duncket dese ledicheit soe groot, datmen se met gheenen wercken, hoe goet sij sijn, hinderen en sal, want de ledicheit edelre es dan alle doechde. Ende hier-omme staen si in eenen pueren lidene zonder eenich werc opwert ocht nederweert, rechte alse dat ghetouwe dat selve ledich es ende sijns meesters beidt wanneer hi werken wilt. Want wrachten si yet, soe worde God ghehindert in sinen werkene. Ende hier-omme sijn si ledich alre doechde, ende also ledich, dat si niet en willen dancken noch loven Gode, ende si en hebben bekinnen noch minnen noch willen noch bidden noch begeren. Want al dat si bidden ende begheren mochten, na haren dunckene, dat hebbense beseten … . Al toenen sijt van buten inden schine, sine sijn van binnen niemen onderdaenich, noch met wille noch met werken, want si sijn alle dies ledich na alre wijs daer die heilighe Kercke met omme gheet. Ende hier-omme segghen si: alsoe langhe alse de mensche na doechde steet ende hi begheert den liefsten wille Gods te doene, soe es hi noch een onvolcomen mensche. Want hi gadert noch doechde, ende hi en weet niet van desen gheestelijcken armoede noch van deser ledicheit.

Ruusbroec’s concluding denunciation of all such persons is in the strongest possible terms, for he says that “they are all erring persons and

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the worst who live, and are to be avoided as much as the foe from hell.”1 Indeed, “they are just like the damned spirits in hell, for the damned are without minne and knowledge and are void of thanksgiving and praise and all minlijc devotion, and this is the reason why they remain eternally damned. And for these persons nothing more is needed than that their time fall into eternity and then justice will be revealed in their works.”2 Contemporary scholars who have given careful study to the mysticism of the Low Countries have often pointed out that the irreplaceable role of virtuous activity at all levels of the mystical life is particularly emphasized by these mystics. Thus, Jean Orcibal of the Sorbonne writes that “it is not by chance that, for the Rhenish and Flemish mystics, the person who has attained a life of union with God can devote himself to all kinds of activities; in fact, such a person will henceforth be sufficiently strong to apply himself to any object at all without thereby losing his purity, for he will perceive such an object no longer in its empirical form but in its cause or its ideal being in God – a theory which, as we have seen, played a primary role in the thought of the mystics of northern Europe at least up to the time of Harphius [d. 1477].”3 Paul Mommaers of the Ruusbroecgenootschap, writing specifically about the medieval mystics of the Low Countries, makes a similar point when he notes: One must [according to the teaching of these mystics] always be truly charitable, but one person will become attached to these particular works [of charity], while another will not become attached (even though performing them). In the one case, what one experiences is a virtuous “I” who can only appropriate his actions to himself and become attached to his particular works. In the other case, it is a question of an outright mystical experience: the person senses that his virtue comes from God (who “touches” 1  Br., 2: 236, 8-10. “Dit sijn alle verkeerde menschen ende die quaetste die leven, ende si sijn alsoe sere te scouwene alse de viant vander hellen.” 2  Br., 2: 237, 23-29: “Si sijn wel ghelijc den verdoemden gheesten in der hellen. Want de verdoemde gheesten sijn sonder minne ende bekinnen, ende si sijn ledich danckens ende lovens, ende alles minlijcs toevoeghens ende dit es de sake dat si eewelijcke verdoemt bliven. Ende desen menschen en ghebrect oec niet meer dan dat hare tijt valle in eewicheit, ende dan die gherechticheit gheopenbaert werde in haren werken.” 3  Jean Orcibal, Saint Jean de la Croix et les mystiques rhéno-flamands (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1966), pp. 201-2.

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the soul in its “ground,” beyond whatever is “I”) and that he can devote himself to particular works without becoming attached to them, that he can act efficaciously without being thereby dispersed.4

Now that this important point about the relationship of “the active life” to “the interior life” has been made, the place of minne in the latter will be considered. Minne and Karitate in Section One of Book Two The Ideal of Interior Unification Ruusbroec introduces the second book of the Brulocht by referring once more to the text from the parable of the wise and foolish virgins and saying that he will interpret the same four parts of the text, only this time as regards “the interior life.” Through the command “Behold” Christ is expressing his will “that our understanding be enlightened with a supernatural brightness”; “the bridegroom is coming” indicates what we are to behold, namely, the “interior coming of our bridegroom”; the command to “go forth” means that we are to “go forth in interior exercises according to righteousness”; and the phrase “to meet him” reveals the goal of such exercises, “the meeting with Christ our bridegroom in the blissful unity of the Godhead.”5 After these introductory remarks, Ruusbroec turns at once to the first of these four. Just as in book one he taught that there are three requisites for being able to behold in “the active life,” so too here: Whoever is to see in a supernatural way in interior exercises needs three things. The first is the light of God’s

4

Soe wie dat sien sal overnatuerlijc in innigher oefeninghen, daer-toe behoren van node drie poente. Dat eerste es licht

 Paul Mommaers, S.J., “Bulletin d’histoire de la spiritualité: L’école néerlandaise,” Revue d’histoire de la spiritualité 49 (1973): 473. See also Louis Cognet, Introduction aux mystiques rhéno-flamands, especially pp. 271-72. 5  Br., 2: 143, 19-30: “dat onse verstannesse verclaert si met overnatuerlijcker claerheit”; “die inwendighe toecomst ons Brudegoms”; “ute te gane in inwendigher oefeninghen na gherechticheit”; “dat ontmoet ons Brudegoms Cristi in ghebrukelijcker eenicheit der Godheit.”

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grace in a higher way than one might experience it in the outward, active life without interior zeal. The second thing is a blotting out of alien images and an emptiness of heart, so that one is free and imageless and unfettered and empty of all creatures. The third thing is a free turning of the will with a gathering together of all the powers, bodily and spiritual, unencumbered by inordinate liefden [plural], flowing into the unity of God and into the unity of the mind, so that the rational creature might attain the high unity of God and possess it supernaturally. For this reason God created heaven and earth and all things, and for this reason he became man and taught us and lived for us and was himself the way into this unity. And he died in the bond of minne and ascended and has opened to us the same unity whereby we might possess eternal bliss. (Br., 2: 144, 5-23)

der gracien Gods in hoghere wijs dan mens ghevoelen mach in uutwindighen werkenden levene sonder innighe ernsticheit. Dat ander poent es een ontblotinghe vremder beelden ende onledicheden van herten, dat de mensche vri ende onverbeeldet ende ongheacht ende ledich si van allen creatueren. Dat derde poent es eene vrie keer des willen met vergaderinghen alre crachte, lijflijcker ende gheestelijcker, ontcommert van alre ongheoordender liefden, invlietende in die eenicheit Gods ende in die eenicheit der ghedachten, op-dat die redelijcke creatuere die hoghe eenicheit Gods vercrighen ende besitten moge overnatuerlijcke. Daer-omme hevet God hemel ende eerde ghescapen ende alle dinc, ende daeromme is Hi mensche worden, ende hevet ons gheleert ende ghelevet ende self die wech gheweset in die Eenicheit. Ende Hi es ghestorven in bande van minnen, ende opghevaren, ende hevet ons ontsloten die selve Eenicheit daer wij mede moghen besitten die eeuwighe zalicheit.

The often repeated theme of this passage is unity, particularly the attainment of union with God. Ruusbroec writes that it was so that we might attain “the high unity of God” that God created us and that the second person of the Trinity became man, taught us, died, and ascended to the Father. A person’s attainment of this union with God presupposes a unification within the person himself, “a gathering together of all the powers, bodily and spiritual, unencumbered by inordinate liefden.” This ideal of interior unification or “collectedness” is by no means unique to Ruusbroec. What Karl Rahner once wrote of German mysticism is applicable to Ruusbroec and other mystics of the Low Countries as well, namely, that this mysticism “often named as its ideal the man ‘of the heart’ (innig [literally, ‘interior’]), the ‘collected’ (gesammelt) man, the man, that is, whose whole activity is an exhaustive expression of his innermost centre and his innermost vital decision, and who therefore

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remains ‘collected’ in this innermost centre without being dispersed in anything alien to this decision.”6 The Three Unities and their Adornment Ruusbroec, however, does not speak merely of one center or unity in man, but of three. The first, and highest, is said to be “in God,” for in this unity the human spirit is united directly with God; it is this bond or unity which preserves us in being, for if creatures “were separated from God at this level, they would fall into nothingness and be annihilated.”7 In other words, this unity is in us by nature and so is found in all persons, the good and the bad alike. The second unity is called “the unity of the higher powers” (eenicheit der overster crachten), for it is here that the powers of memory, understanding, and will have their source. Ruusbroec explains its close relationship to the unity “in God” in the following way: “This is the same unity as that which is ‘in God,’ but here it is considered in its activity and there in its being … . From this derive memory and understanding and will, and all the power of spiritual activity. In this unity the soul is called ‘spirit.’”8 Finally, there is “the unity of the heart” (eenicheit des herten), the source of bodily life; from it flow all the bodily activities and the five senses. Although every human being, simply in virtue of being such, possesses all three of these unities, their mere possession “by nature” is of no avail for eternal life. For this, these unities must be “supernaturally adorned and possessed through moral virtues in karitate and through an active life.”9 6  Karl Rahner, “The Theological Concept of Concupiscentia,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 1: God, Christ, Mary and Grace, trans. Cornelius Ernst (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1961; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961), p. 374. 7  Br., 2: 145, 1-2: “scieden si in deser wijs van Gode, si vielen in niet ende worden te niete.” 8  Br., 2: 145, 11-12 & 15-17: “Dit es die selve eenichehit die in Gode hanghet, maer men neemse hier werkelijcke ende daer weselijcke … . Ende hier-ute comt memorie ende verstannisse ende wille, ende alle die macht gheestelijcker werke. In deser eenicheit heetmen die ziele gheest.” 9  Br., 2: 145, 34-146, 2: “overnatuerlijcke gheciert ende beseten met sedelijcken duechden in karitaten ende met werkenden leven.”

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In that life, the lowest of the three unities is said by Ruusbroec to receive this supernatural adornment by one’s acting according to the example of Christ and the saints, carrying the cross with Christ, and following the commandments of the Church and the teaching of the saints. The second unity, that of the higher powers, receives such adornment through the three divine (godlijc) virtues of faith, hope, and minne, accompanied by the grace of God and one’s openness toward all the virtues, while the third unity is possessed supernaturally when one intends God’s praise and honor in all one’s works and rests in God above all things. Ruusbroec concludes this treatment of the adornment of the three unities in “the active life” by writing that the third and highest of them “is the unity from which we have come forth as creatures and in which we have remained in our being and toward which, by means of karitate, we are minlijc returning again.”10 In this text, the description of the return to this unity in God as being minlijc points up once more the unitive aspect of minne, while the fact that this return is, in “the active life,” said to be “by means of karitate” is further indication of a primarily active note in karitate. As one would expect, it is not only in “the active life” that these three unities are to be supernaturally adorned. A still more excellent way is for them to be thus adorned in “the interior life” as well. This latter adornment is not within our power beyond the point of our being able to dispose ourselves for its reception. In the following passage, in which Ruusbroec uses the metaphor of a fine liqueur being poured into a vessel to illustrate his meaning, the same unitive aspect of minne and the same active aspect of karitate that were just pointed out are once again in clear evidence: Now we will go on to say how these three unities are adorned in a higher way and possessed more excellently with interior exercises added to the active life. When a man, by means of karitate and an upright intention, offers himself in all his works and in all his life to the honor and praise of God, and seeks rest in God

Nu willen wij voert spreken hoe dese drie eenicheiden hoghere gheciert ende edelijckere beseten werden met innigher oefeninghen tot den werkenden leven. Alse hem die mensche overmids karitate ende opgherechte meyninghe opdraghende es in alle sinen werken ende in alle sinen levene ter eeren Gods ende tot

10  Br., 2: 146, 22-25: “Dit es die eenicheit daer wij creatuerlijcker wijs ute ghevloten sijn, ende weselijc in-bleven sijn, ende, overmids karitate, minlijcke weder toekeerende sijn.”

CHAPTER FOUR above all things then he will humbly, with patience and self-surrender, constantly await with sure trust new riches and new gifts, and constantly be untroubled whether God gives them or not. Thus one creates a readiness and an aptitude to receive an interior life of desire. And when the vessel is ready then the fine liqueur is poured in. There is no more excellent vessel than the minnende soul, nor a more wholesome drink than the grace of God. So a person will offer all his works and all his life to God with a simple, upright intention, and will rest above intention and above himself and above all things in the high unity where God and the minnende spirit are united without intermediary. (Br., 2: 146, 29-147, 12)

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den love Gods, ende ruste suekende is in Gode boven alle dinc, dan sal hi oetmoedelijc, met verduldicheiden ende in ghelatenheiden sijns selfs, met sekeren toeverlate altoes beyden nuwer rijcheit ende nuwer gaven: ende altoes ombecommert weder God ghevet ochte niet en ghevet. Aldus maectmen eene bereetscap ende eene bevallijcheit een inwindich begheerlijc leven te ontfane. Alse dat vadt bereet es, stortmen daer-in edele licore. Hen is gheen edelre vat dan die minnende ziele, noch orborlijcker dranc dan die gracie Gods. Aldus sal die mensche Gode opdraghen alle sine werke ende al sijn leven met eenvuldigher opgherechter meyninghen, ende rusten boven meyninghe ende boven hem selven ende boven alle dinc in die hoghe eenicheit daer God ende die minnende gheest ghenecht sijn zonder middel.

The Three Requisites for “Beholding” Ruusbroec does not at once turn to a consideration of the way in which these three unities become supernaturally adorned in “the interior life,” for he reserves that until he interprets the phrases “the bridegroom is coming; go forth.” Rather, he next writes that if a person does indeed come to rest in this high unity of the Godhead, then Christ, from out of this unity, will say to him, “Behold.” By this term Ruusbroec understands “nothing other than an influx of [Christ’s] light and his grace.”11 In this unity, the multiplicity of one’s virtues coalesce, and from this unity they flow forth again in a constant movement of ebb and flow mirroring the movement found within the Trinity. Ruusbroec remarks that this infusion of grace is the first requisite, already mentioned, for one’s being able to see in a supernatural way in “the interior life.” Responding to it, there comes from our side the second requisite, which is the gathering together of all one’s powers in the “unity of the spirit” (eenicheit des gheests, another term employed 11

 Br., 2: 147, 23-24: “anders niet dan een invloeyen sijns lichts ende sire gracien.”

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by Ruusbroec to signify what has already been described as the eenicheit der overster crachten). Several times Ruusbroec writes that this particular unity is maintained “in the bond of minne,”12 thereby emphasizing again the unitive aspect of minne. If the third requisite is likewise present, namely, a freedom such that one can live undisturbed and without anxiety in all situations, then Ruusbroec concludes that one is indeed able to see as befits a person in “the interior life”; with this observation he ends the first section of this second book of the Brulocht. Minne, Karitate, and Liefde in the Combined Second and Third Sections of Book Two Introductory Remarks on the Three Comings of the Bridegroom and the Corresponding Ways of “Going Forth” The next section of this second book corresponds to what were both the second and third sections of the first book, for now, in treating “the interior life,” Ruusbroec comments on the two phrases “the bridegroom is coming” and “go forth” together rather than in separate sections. He begins by noting that even if a person were able to see perfectly in the manner befitting this stage of the spiritual life, this would avail nothing if there were no minlijc, desirable object to be seen. In fact, there is such an object – the interior coming of the bridegroom. Ruusbroec says that this coming occurs in three different manners (which he sometimes refers to as three different comings), each of which “raises the person to a higher state of being and to more interior practices.”13 The first of these is a coming into the heart, that is, into the unity of the bodily powers, and itself is characterized by four different modes, each higher than the one previous. Through this coming the lowest part of the person is supernaturally adorned, with body and soul, heart and senses, and all the outward and inward powers being drawn together in the unity of minne.14 The second coming is into the higher powers of memory, understanding, and will, 12

 Br., 2: 147, 28 & 149, 5-6: “in bande van minnen.”  Br., 2: 149, 28-29: “hoghet den mensche in een hogher wesen ende in inniger oefeninghen.” 14  Br., 2: 149, 29-150, 15 & 153, 6-9. 13

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which thereby become supernaturally adorned, and the third coming is into that “part” of the soul where these three powers have their source, namely, into the unity of the spirit. In Ruusbroec’s words, “The third manner of our Lord’s interior coming is an interior stirring or touch in the unity of the spirit, where the highest powers of the soul abide and from where they flow forth and to which they return and in which they remain constantly united by means of the bond of minne and the natural unity of the spirit.”15 It is through the study of Ruusbroec’s treatment of these three kinds of interior coming that his understanding of minne and of its relationship with karitate and liefde will become much clearer. The First Coming: Into the Heart The first mode of this coming: Minne and liefde in this mode

Ruusbroec defines the first coming of the bridegroom, that into the unity of the bodily powers, as “an interior, felt impulse of the Holy Spirit, who urges and drives us on toward all virtues.”16 All four manners of this first coming are illustrated by Ruusbroec with the aid of a simile: just as the sun shines upon and gives light and heat to all parts of the earth, so too does Christ, who is “the glorious sun and the divine brightness,”17 shine upon the heart and all the sensible powers of the soul. The “going forth” called for by Christ according to the first manner or mode of his coming elicits a series of states in which the aspect of feeling or affectivity is predominant. The first such state is true unity of heart, not merely that natural unity which is in persons simply in virtue of the soul’s informing the body, but a supernatural unity brought about by God’s Spirit enkindling his fire in our hearts, with the result that a person feels (ghevoelt) himself interiorly 15

 Br., 2: 150, 28-33: “Die derde maniere der inwindigher toecomst ons Heeren, dat es een inwindich rueren ochte gherinen in eenicheit des gheests, daer die overste crachte der zielen in zijn ende ute vloyen, ende wederkeeren ende altoes eenich in bliven overmids bant van minnen ende eenicheit des gheests van natueren.” 16  Br., 2: 151, 21-22: “een inwindich ghevoelijc driven des Heylichs Gheest, die ons stoket ende drivet tot allen duechden.” 17  Br., 2: 152, 22-23: “die gloriose Zonne ende die godlijcke claerheit.”

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collected with all his powers in the unity of his heart. There is produced a sense of “interior peace and rest,” and all this is in the “unity of minne.”18 Arising out of this unity of heart is a state of interiority, described by Ruusbroec in the following way: Interiority consists in a person’s being interiorly turned from within to his own heart so that he may understand and feel the working and speaking of God. Interiority is a sensible fire of minne, which the Spirit of God has set aflame and makes burn. Interiority enflames and drives and urges the person from within, and he does not know whence it comes or what has happened to him. (Br., 2: 153, 11-18)

Innicheit es, dat de mensche inwindich van binnen ghekeert si te siene eyghender herten, op-dat hi verstaen mach ende ghevoelen moghe dat inwerken ochte dat inspreken Gods. Innicheit es een ghevoelijc vier van minnen, dat die Gheest Gods ontfunct heeft ende bernen doet. Innicheit bernet ende drivet ende stoket den mensche van binnen, ende hi en weet wanen het comt ochte wat hem ghesciet es.

The expression “a sensible fire of minne” is the first of many in Ruusbroec’s consideration of the first coming of the bridegroom in “the interior life” in which minne will be associated with feeling, sensibility, ardor, and other aspects of what he considers “the bodily part of the person.” It was already seen in the preceding chapter of this study, when treating the first manner of meeting the bridegroom in “the active life,” that liefde and minne were used together in a similar context. Not surprisingly, this association of liefde and minne will appear again in this section of the second book, dealing as it does with Christ’s coming to adorn supernaturally the whole realm of “the heart,” of human sensibility. One such association of liefde and minne occurs in the following passage, which immediately follows the one quoted above on interiority: From interiority comes a felt liefde, which passes through a person’s heart and the desiring power of the soul. This desiring liefde, accompanied by a felt savor of the heart, can be had by no one unless he is inward of mind. Felt liefde

Ute innicheiden comt eene ghevoelijcke liefde, die tsmenschen herte doergheet ende die begheerlijcke cracht der zielen. Dese begherlijcke liefde met ghevoelijcken smake des herten en mach niemant hebben, hi en si innich van

18  Br., 2: 152, 34-153, 9. Ruusbroec’s phrase for “interior peace and rest” is inwindighe vrede ende ruste.

CHAPTER FOUR and minne is a desirous, savoring delight which one has toward God as toward an eternal good in which all good is encompassed. Felt liefde does without creatures as regards taking pleasure in them, though not as regards need of them. Interior liefde feels itself moved from within by eternal minne, which it must always practice. Interior liefde easily forgoes and despises all things so that it might obtain what it loves (mint). (Br., 2: 153, 19-30)

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ghemoede. Ghevoelijcke liefde ende minne, dat es eene begherlijcke smakende ghelost diemen hevet te Gode als tot eenen eewighen Goede daer alle goet in besloten is. Ghevoelijcke liefde ghevet orlof alle creatueren na der ghelost, niet na der noot. Innighe liefde ghevoelt hare gherenen van binnen met eewigher minnen diere si emmer pleghen moet. Innighe liefde vertijt ende versmaedt lichtelijcke alle dinc, op-dat si vercrighen moghe dat si mint.

In this short passage, the term liefde is used six times; three of these times it is described as “felt” (ghevoelijc), twice as “interior” (innig), and once as “desiring” (begheerlijc). Considering the fact that Ruusbroec has just previously defined interiority in terms of ardor, of being enflamed, it is clear that all three of the adjectives used to modify liefde in the passage quoted above have a pronounced affective aspect, thus providing one more piece of evidence that liefde is regularly placed by Ruusbroec in the realm of the feelings or emotions. Furthermore, in the passage just quoted the phrase “felt liefde and minne” is clearly understood as one reality, defined as “a desirous, savoring delight which one has toward God.” From these facts may be drawn the tentative conclusion, suggested already in the previous chapter of this study, that liefde is regularly understood by Ruusbroec as the affective aspect of minne, whereas minne, while embracing this affective note, is by no means thus severely limited to this one realm of human reality. This concomitance of minne and liefde within the realm of affectivity appears just as clearly in the lines which Ruusbroec devotes to devotion to God, arising as it does from the state of “felt liefde” which has just been discussed. It is to be noted in the following passage that not only is minne again grouped with “felt liefde” as a single state of mind, but also minne and liefde together – and without differentiation – characterize the fire or ardor which manifests the presence of true devotion. Ruusbroec writes: From this felt liefde comes devotion to God and to his honor. For no one can have desirous devotion in his heart except the person who has a felt liefde and

Ute deser ghevoelijcker liefden comt devocie te Gode ende te sire eeren. Want niement en mach begerlijcke devocie hebben in siere herten dan die mensche

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minne toward God. Devotion is present where the fire of minne and of liefde sends up its flames of desire to heaven. Devotion touches and draws a man from without and from within to the service of God. (Br., 2: 153, 31-154, 3)

die ghevoelijcke liefde ende minne to Gode draecht. Devocie, dat es alse dat vier der minnen ende der liefden sine vlamme der begherten op-ghevet te hemele. Devocie rueret ende stoect den mensche van buyten ende van binnen, ten dienste Gods.

The affective aspect of minne also appears when Ruusbroec describes the state which follows upon and arises from devotion to God, namely, gratitude to God, for Ruusbroec says that this includes expressions of both thankfulness and praise, and “to praise God is the most pleasant and the most joyful work of the minnende heart,”19 as proper and fitting for minnende persons on earth as it is for the angels and saints in heaven. Ruusbroec concludes this sequence of the various states that follow one another in this first mode of Christ’s coming into the unity of the heart by describing the grief and pain that arise in a person as he becomes aware of how much he always falls short both in due praise and homage of God and in the desired advancing in karitate and virtues.20 But before moving on to a consideration of the next mode of this coming, Ruusbroec offers an example to help his reader understand the first mode. It, like others of Ruusbroec’s extended similes, is worth reading in its own right, but this particular simile also brings out one final time the strongly affective quality of minne in this particular mode; the simile is that of boiling water, and the fire that stirs up the powers of the soul to boil over in praise of God is precisely “the fire of minne” or “fire of the Holy Spirit”: When natural fire, by means of its heat and power, has stirred water or some other liquid up to the boiling point, then that is its highest achievement. Then the water reverses its motion and falls back to the bottom and is then stirred up again to the same activity by the power of the fire, so that the fire is constantly stirring up the water

Alse dat natuerlijcke vier overmids sine hitte ende sine cracht opghedreven hevet dat watere ochte andere licore toe den walle, dat es sijn hoochste werc: soe drayet dat water ende valt weder opden selven gront, ende wert dan weder opghedreven totden selven wercke, van crachte des viers; also dat dat vier altoes drivende si, ende dat water altoes

19  Br., 2: 155, 13-14: “Gode loven, dat es dat ghenoechtlijcste ende dat blijdste werc der minnender herten.” 20  Br., 2: 155, 18-30.

CHAPTER FOUR and the water is constantly boiling. The interior fire of the Holy Spirit acts in the same way: it drives and stirs up and goads the heart and all the powers of the soul to a boil, that is, to thank and praise God in the way I have already said. And then one falls back again onto the same ground where the Spirit of God is burning, so that the fire of minne is constantly burning and the heart of man is constantly thanking and praising in word and deed and constantly abiding in its lowliness, considering what one should do and would like to do as something great, and considering what one does to be of little account. (Br., 2: 155, 32-156, 14)

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wallende si. Alsoe ghelijckerwijs werket dat inwindighe vier dies Heylichs Gheests: het drivet ende het stoket ende jaghet dat herte ende alle die crachte der zielen toe den walle, dat es: Gode te danckene ende to lovene na die wise die ic vore seide. Ende soe valtmen weder opden selven gront daer die Gheest Gods berrent; alsoe dat dat vier der minnen altoes berne, ende dat herte des menschen altoes dancke ende love met woorden ende met wercken, ende altoes in nederheiden blive: datmen groot achte datmen doen soude ende datmen gherne dade, ende cleine achte datmen doet.

The second mode of this coming: Minne and liefde in this mode It is only at the end of his treatment of this first mode of Christ’s first coming that Ruusbroec refers to the time of year in the sun’s annual course to which this mode of the eternal Sun’s coming could be compared: the sun toward the beginning of summer, when flowers and fruit begin to appear, even as this mode of the bridegroom’s coming “makes the heart grow and bring forth foliage with interior liefde and bloom with desirous devotion.”21 On the other hand, he introduces the second mode of the bridegroom’s coming into the unity of the heart with an immediate comparison with the sun entering into the zodiacal sign of the Gemini; now rising higher in the sky than it had earlier, it draws much moisture into the air, this being followed by the falling of dew and rain and a consequent increase of fruit on the face of the earth. Ruusbroec applies this likeness to the coming of Christ in the following way: So too, when Christ, the bright sun, has risen in our hearts above all things; and when the demands of the bodily

Alsoe ghelijckerwijs, alse die claere Zonne Cristus ghehoghet es in onser herten boven alle dinc; ende dan

21  Br., 2: 156, 24-26: “doet dat herte groeyen ende loeven met innigher liefden, ende bloeyen met begheerlijcker devocien.”

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nature which are opposed to the spirit have been overcome and discreetly ordered; and when the virtues have been possessed in the manner which you heard about in the first mode; and when by means of the warmth of karitate all the savor and all the rest which one feels in virtue have been offered and brought before God with thanks and praise: thereupon there comes at times a sweet rain of new, interior consolation and a heavenly dew of divine sweetness. This makes all virtues grow and increase twofold if one conducts himself as he should. This is a special new work and a new coming of Christ into the minnende heart, and hereby one is raised to a higher degree than previously. (Br., 2: 157, 12-27)

die eyschinghen der lijflijcker natueren die contrarie den gheeste sijn, bedwonghen ende gheordent sijn met bescedenheiden; ende die duechde beseten sijn na die maniere die ghi ghehoert hebt inder vorsten wisen; ende dan overmids hitten der karitaten al die smaec ende al die raste diemen ghevoelt in duechden, met dancke ende met love in Gode gheoffert ende opghedraghen werden: hier-af comt bi wilen soete reghen nuwes inwindichs troosts ende hemelschen dau godlijcker soeticheit. Dit doet wassen ende dubbeleert alle duechde tweevoldichlijcke, es hem recht. Dit es een sonderlinghe nuwe wercken ende eene nuwe toecomst Cristi inder minnender herten, ende hier-met wert die mensche ghehoghet in eene hoghere wise dan hi vore hadde.

Clearly, the note of affectivity that was so pronounced in the section on the first mode of this coming is to be found in this mode as well. It is now primarily a question of a “new, interior consolation and a heavenly dew of divine sweetness,” all of this falling upon the minnende heart. One would accordingly expect that the same association of minne and liefde noted in the first mode will continue here, and that is indeed the case. Ruusbroec writes that out of the sweetness of this consolation the bridegroom again calls upon one to “go forth,” and that this going forth is accompanied by so great a sense of delight in the heart “that one thinks that he is caught up from within in a divine embrace in liefde,” which “makes the person realize how pitiable are those who live apart from minne.”22 Here again, liefde and minne are used quite synonymously. So overpowering can this sense of delight be that it produces a kind of spiritual inebriation, described by Ruusbroec at some length and including 22  Br., 2: 157, 31-32: “dat de mensche dunct dat hi omhelset si van binnen met godlijcken omvanghe in liefden,” and 158, 4-5: “Dit doet den mensche merken hoe alindich si sijn die buyten minnen woenen.”

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such manifestations as singing the praises of God out of a fullness of joy, weeping copiously, running and jumping about, clapping one’s hands, and crying out in a loud voice. Sometimes it even seems that one’s heart will break out of the fullness of this delight. Although Ruusbroec does not disapprove of these manifestations as such, he recognizes that there is a real danger here, since one could easily conclude that one has earned these consolations and is worthy of them, or else one could desire simply to rest in these consolations in quite complete passivity. With the aid of another extended simile Ruusbroec illustrates the proper behavior for such periods of spiritual delight. Just as the bee does not remain on any one flower, but goes from one to another, drawing from them sweetness and bringing that back to the unity of the hive, so too will one act when experiencing the sweetness of this second manner of Christ’s first coming: The wise man will act like the bee and fly attentively and reasonably and discreetly to all the gifts and all the sweetness which he has ever felt, and to all the good that God has ever imparted to him. And with the light of karitate and of interior attentiveness he will test all the multiplicity of consolation and of goodness, and not rest upon any flower of these gifts but, laden with thanks and praise, fly back into the unity where he shall rest and abide with God forever. This is the second manner of interior exercise which adorns the lowest part of man in many a way. (Br., 2: 160, 6-17)

Soe sal die wise mensche doen alse die bye, ende sal vlieghen met ghemercke ende met redenen ende met ondersceede op alle die gaven ende op alle die sueticheit diere hi je ghevoelde, ende op al dat goet dat hem God je ghedede; ende met dien strale der karitaten ende innichs ghemercs proeven alle die menichfuldicheit des troosts ende des goets, ende niet rusten op gheene bloeme der gaven; maer, al gheladen met dancke ende met love, weder vlieghen in die eenicheit daer hi met Gode rusten ende wonen wilt in eewicheit. Dit es die andere wise innigher oefeninghen die ciert dat nederste deel tsmenschen in menigher wijs.

With this simile, in which karitate is said to serve as an aid to enlightened discrimination, Ruusbroec concludes his consideration of the second mode of Christ’s first coming and proceeds to the third. The third mode of this coming: the heart wounded by minne Continuing with the simile of the annual course of the sun, Ruusbroec writes that the third manner of Christ’s first coming can be compared

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with the time of year when the sun has reached its highest point in the heavens, the time when the heat is greatest, moisture drawn out of the air by the sun, and fruit brought most quickly to ripeness. In a similar way, Christ, the divine sun, is in this third manner raised to the highest point in our heart, above all gifts and consolation that we could receive from him, and from there draws us to himself. The minnende heart is now neither overcome nor hindered by any savor or consolation, but is willing to forgo these “so that it might find the one whom it loves (mint).”23 The nature of this manner of Christ’s coming, with its strong emphasis on the Lord’s invitation to union with him, is capsulized by Ruusbroec in the following passage: The first work of Christ and the beginning of this mode is that God draw the heart and the desires and all the powers of the soul upward to heaven and call them to be united with him, and that he speak spiritually in the heart: “Go forth from yourself to me, according to the manner in which I draw and call you.” This attraction and this calling is something I cannot well explain to coarse, unfeeling persons, but it is an interior invitation and calling of the heart to its higher unity. This interior invitation is more pleasant to the minnende heart than all the things which it ever felt, for from this arises a new mode and a higher exercise. (Br., 2: 161, 8-19)

Dat eerste werc Cristi ende dat beghin deser wisen, dat es dat God dat herte trecke, ende die begheerte ende alle die cracht der zielen, opweert te hemele, ende eyscht vereenicht te sine met Hem, ende spreect gheestelijc inder herten: “Gaet ute u selven, te my, na die wise dat Ic u trecke ende eysche.” Dit trecken ende dit eyschen en can ic niet wel bewisen groven ombevoelijcken menschen. Maer het es een inwindich herten-noeden ende eyschen te sire hoghere eenicheit. Dit inwindighe noden es ghenoechlijc der minnender herten boven alle dinc die si je ghevoelde. Want hier-af ontspringhet eene nuwe wise ende eene hoghere oefeninghe.

The largely passive nature of this “higher exercise” is evident from the way in which Ruusbroec goes on to describe it: This attraction is a shining forth of Christ, the eternal sun, and produces so much pleasure and joy in the heart and makes the heart open so wide that one 23

Dit noden es een inschinen Cristi der eeuwigher Zonnen, ende maect soe groot ghenoechte ende vroude inder herten, ende doet dat herte soe wide ontpluken,

 Br., 2: 161, 4: “op-datse Den-ghene vinde dien si mint.”

CHAPTER FOUR can never really close it. At this, one’s heart is wounded within and one feels the wound of minne. To be wounded by minne is the sweetest feeling and the deepest pain that one can bear. To be wounded by minne is a sure sign that one will be healed. This spiritual wound causes healing and pain at one and the same time. Christ the true sun shines and beams again upon the wounded, open heart and again calls it to unity. (Br., 2: 161, 24-36)

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datment nie wel gheluken en can. Hier-af wert de mensche van binnen int herte ghewont ende ghevoelt quetsueren van minnen. Ghewont te sine van minnen, dat es een seker teeken datmen ghenesen sal. Die gheestelijcke wonde die maect wel ende wee in eenen tijde. Cristus die ghewarighe Zonne, die blict ende schijnt weder in dat ghewonde opene herte, ende eyschet echter eenicheit.

Why this wound that one suffers should be called a wound of minne is indicated by the way in which Ruusbroec describes the resulting pain, for he says that it arises from the fact that “one cannot attain what one desires above all else and must always remain where one does not wish to be.”24 In fact, this last-cited clause indicates the predominant feature of minne in this third mode of the first coming, for while he here writes of not being able to attain “what one desires (begheert),” a few lines later, in the same context, Ruusbroec writes of one’s here being ready to suffer all things “so that one might attain what one loves (mint).”25 This interchangeable usage of the verbs “to desire” and “to love” points to desire as the aspect of minne that comes most clearly to the fore in this particular section of book two of the Brulocht. Ruusbroec proceeds to describe briefly some of the manifestations associated with this mode of the bridegroom’s coming, such as revelations, visions, raptures, and flashes of insight. In one of these manifestations in particular, the desiring aspect of minne is quite pronounced. Speaking of the person who lives in the “fierce ardor of minne” (orewoet van minnen), Ruusbroec writes that sometimes a kind of light shines upon him, and that in this light the heart and the power of desire raise him toward that light. In meeting the light, the desire and the pleasure are so great that the heart

in desen lichte verheft hem dat herte ende die begherlijcke cracht jegen dat licht. Ende inden ghemoete des lichts es die ghelost ende die ghenoechte soe

24  Br., 2: 162, 6-8: “men dies niet vercrigen en mach datmen boven al begheert, ende daer emmer bliven moet daermen niet sijn en wilt.” 25  Br., 2: 162, 25: “op-datmen vercrighen moghe Dat men mint.”

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cannot bear it but breaks forth with cries of joy. This is called “jubilus” or “jubilation,” that is, a joy which one cannot express in words. (Br., 2: 164, 21-27)

groot, dat dat herte niet gheliden en can, maer van vrouden berstet ute met eere stemmen: ende dit hetet jubileeren, ochte jubilacie, dat es: eene vroude diemen met woorden niet ghetonen en can.

The desire for union with God can be so great that the person experiencing the fierce ardor of minne can fall “into a yearning and an impatient desire to be freed from the prison of his body so that he might be united with the one whom he loves (mint).”26 But not only may this desire lead to a yearning for death, sometimes it actually leads to death itself: The shining of the divine rays burns so sorely and so hot from above, and the minnende, wounded heart is so set aflame from within when the heat of the emotions and the impatience of the desires are so much set aflame, that one falls into impatience and dissatisfaction like that of a woman in labor who cannot be delivered. If one then looks without ceasing into his own wounded heart and upon the one whom he loves (mint), then his pain constantly increases. The suffering increases for so long a time that the person dries up and shrivels in his bodily nature, just as the trees in hot lands, and he dies in the ardor of minne and goes to heaven without passing through purgatory. (Br., 2: 165, 24-166, 2)

Die schijn godlijcker rayen berret soe sere ende soe heet van boven, ende die minnende ghewonde herte wert soe ontfunct van binnen, alse die hitte der affectien ende ongheduere der begheerten alsoe sere ontfunct wert, dat de mensche valt in ongheduere ende in onghepaytheiden, rechte als eene vrouwe die in arbeyte is van kinde ende niet ghenesen en can. Wilt dan de mensce scouwen sonder onderlaet in sine eyghene ghewonde herte ende inden gheenen dien hi mint, soe meerret dat wee altoes. Soe langhe meeret die quale, dat die mensche ane der lijflijcker natueren verdorret ende verdroocht, rechte alse die bome in heeten lande; ende hi stervet in woede van minnen ende vaert sonder vaghevier te hemelrijcke.

Even though Ruusbroec states that the person who dies of minne dies well, he considers the person who is strong enough to survive this onslaught to be clearly superior. To illustrate this ideal he concludes this section on the third manner of the first coming with another simile, 26  Br., 2: 163, 8-11: “in een verlanghen ende in eene ongheduerighe begherte ontbonden te sine vanden kerkere sijns lichamen, op-dat hi vereenicht werde met Den-gheenen dien hi mint.”

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this time taken from the behavior of the ant. This small creature, he writes, is strong and wise and seeks to avoid death; it works with its companions during the summer months in storing up food for the winter, and it does not set out on strange paths but rather follows with its companions one common way. It is in this way that persons caught up in the fierce ardor of minne will behave: They will be strong in awaiting the coming of Christ, alert against the revelations and inspirations of the devil. They will not choose to die, but constantly prefer God’s praise and their own acquisition of new virtues. They will live in the recollection of their heart and of all their powers, and follow the call and attraction of the divine unity. They will live in a hot, dry land, that is, in the strong ardor of minne and in great restlessness, and will work in the summer of this time and gather fruits of virtue for eternity and split them in two … . And they will not construct strange ways or special paths, but [will follow] the way of minne through all storms to where minne guides them. And if they await the time and persevere in all the virtues, then they may contemplate and fly to God’s hiddenness. (Br., 2: 167, 14-23 & 28-32)

Si selen starc sijn in ontbeidene die toecomst Cristi; wijs jeghen dat tonen end dat inspreken des viants. Si en selen niet kiesen te stervene, maer altoes Gode lof, ende hem selve nuwe doechde verwerven. Si selen wonen inder vergadertheit haers herten ende al harer crachte, ende volghen den eyschen ende den noedene godlijcker eenicheit. Si selen wonen in heeten droghen lande, dat es in stercken woede van minnen ende in groter ongeduericheit; ende si selen arbeiten inden somere derre tijt, ende gaderen vruchte der duechde jeghen die eewicheit, ende clivense in tween … . Ende si en selen niet maken vremde weghe ochte zunderlinghe wisen, maer der minnen wech, doer alle storme daer se minne gheleidet. Ende alse men des tijts verbeident, ende met allen duechden volleidet, soe machmen contempleren ende vlieghen in Gods verborghentheit.

The fourth mode of this coming: Minne in a state of desolation Whereas the first and second manners of the bridegroom’s first coming were characterized by sensible consolations, by “felt liefde and minne” and by “a sweet rain of new, interior consolation and a heavenly dew of divine sweetness,” and whereas the third manner, while passing beyond those consolations, was marked by an invitation to union with the bridegroom “more pleasant to the minnende heart than all the things which it ever felt,” the fourth manner is marked by the lessening and even absence of

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all such feelings. Ruusbroec begins this section by saying that he will continue with the simile of the sun, this time considering it in the autumn of the year, when it no longer rises so high in the heavens and gives off less heat than formerly. Ruusbroec applies this image to Christ in the following words: “And so in the same way, when the glorious sun, Christ, has risen in the heart of man to its highest point, as I taught in the third manner, and he then begins to descend and to hide the shining of his divine rays and to leave the person, then the heat and the impatience of minne begins to lessen.”27 Once more the bridegroom calls us to go forth, only this time in a way very different from the preceding ways: So the person goes forth and finds himself poor, wretched, and abandoned. Here all the storm and tempest and impatience of minne are cooled, and an autumn replaces the hot summer, and great poverty replaces all the riches. And so one begins to complain because of his wretchedness: Where have the heat of minne, the interiority, the thankfulness, the joyful praise gone? The interior consolation, the interior joy, the sensible savor – to where have they been taken away from him? The strong ardor of minne and all the gifts which he ever felt – how have they become dead to him? Thus he is like an unlettered man who has lost his subsistence and his work. (Br., 2: 168, 33-169, 10.)

Soe gheet die mensche ute, ende vendet hem arm, ellendich, ghelaten. Hier wort alle storm ende woet ende ongheduer van minnen vercoelt, ende vanden heeten somere wert een herfst, ende van allen rijcdoeme grote armoede. Soe beghint die mensche te claghene van jammere sijns selfs: waer die hitte van minnen, innicheit, dancken, loven met ghenuechten, ghevaren es; inwindich troost, inwindighe vroude ende die bevoelijcke smaec, waer hem die ontbleven sijn; starc woet van minnen, ende alle die gaven die hi je ghevoelde, hoe hem die onstorven sijn. Soe es hi rechte als een ontleert mensche die cost ende arbeyt verloren hevet.

But while “the heat of minne” and “the fierce ardor of minne” are no longer to be felt, and while there is no longer any mention of liefde, with its strongly affective overtones, in this fourth manner of the bridegroom’s coming into the heart, the person experiencing this coming continues to 27

 Br., 2: 168, 22-27: “Also ghelijckerwijs, alse die gloriose Zonne Cristus in tsmenschen herte ghehoghet is ten alre hoochsten alsoe ic leerde in die derde maniere, ende Hi dan beghint te dalene, ende dat inschinen sire godlijcker rayen te berghene, ende den mensche te latene, soe beghint die hitte ende dat ongheduer van minnen te menderene.”

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be called “a minnere of God”28 and will truly be such if only he places his desolation and suffering in the hands of God and rejoices in being able to suffer for God’s sake. Indeed, “one will now, according to his awareness and ability, practice diligently and with a good heart all the exterior and interior virtues which he formerly practiced with desire in the fire of minne, and will offer them to God; never before were they so valuable to God, however excellent and fine they were.”29 Christ as our model for “going forth”: conclusions about liefde and minne A further piece of evidence that Ruusbroec continues to see minne as present in this fourth manner of the first coming is to be found in his conclusion to the entire section dealing with this coming. He here presents Christ himself as our model for the various ways of “going forth” appropriate to this coming. As one would expect, for the first manner or mode Christ is presented as being filled with “a felt liefde and fidelity toward his Father and toward all those who are to enjoy him for eternity,”30 whereas for the fourth manner it is Christ in the desolation of his passion who is our model. Here there is no longer any question of liefde or consolation, but very much of minne, for when delivered into the hands of his enemies he bore all his sufferings in humble patience “and he wrought the strong works of minne in this state of abandonment and thereby acquired and purchased our eternal inheritance.”31 From all this one can conclude that while there is, according to Ruusbroec, an affective aspect to minne which at times is so pronounced that he can speak in one breath of “felt liefde and minne” and, closely related to this, 28

 Br., 2: 170, 11; “den minnere Gods.”  Br., 2: 170, 33-171, 3: “Alle die uutwindighe ochte die inwindighe doechde diemen je in brande van minnen met gelost oefende, die salmen nu, na dat mense bekint ende vermach, oefenen met arbeite ende met goeder herten, ende offeren se Gode: soe en warense Gode noeyt soe weert; si en waren oec noeyt soe edel noch soe fijn.” 30  Br., 2: 176, 13-15: “eene ghevoelijcke liefde ende trouwe tot sinen Vadere ende tot allen den ghenen die sijns eewelijcke ghebruken selen.” 31  Br., 2: 177, 21-24: “Ende Hi wrochte die stercke werke van minnen in deser ghelatenheit, ende Hi hevet daer-met hercreghen ende ghecocht onse eewige erfachticheit.” 29

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an aspect of desire for union with God so intense that it can lead to a yearning for death and even to death itself, minne is nevertheless by no means confined within the borders of affectivity and desire. The more precise manner in which it transcends those borders will now be seen in Ruusbroec’s treatment of the second coming of the bridegroom, a coming into the “higher powers” of memory, understanding, and will. The Second Coming: Into the Higher Powers The adornment of the memory: The minlijc inclination of our spirit toward the Godhead

As a way of ordering his consideration of this coming Ruusbroec again employs a simile, this time not that of the sun, but rather that of a spring with three streams flowing from it. At the very beginning of this section he describes the spring as “the fullness of God’s grace in the unity of our spirit” and the three streams as “special influxes or workings of God in the highest powers, where God works by means of grace in various ways.”32 He then proceeds to describe the first of the three streams as one of “pure simplicity,” which penetrates all the powers of the soul and raises them above all multiplicity and busyness, thus creating in the person a state of singleminded simplicity free of all instability. The person is thus supernaturally adorned in his “memory” (in the broad Augustinian sense, not merely in the sense of a power able to recall the past) and Christ calls this person to “go forth” in the way appropriate to this adornment. This going forth is simultaneously a “going within,” a retreat from the influx of sense-images and from multiple concerns into the unity of the spirit, which is now seen to be “his own dwelling place and his eternal, personal inheritance.”33 But this movement within to imageless simplicity does not stop there, but is marked by a further 32  Br., 2: 178, 28-29: “de volheit der gracien Gods in eenicheit ons gheests,” and 179, 1-3: “zonderlinghe invloten ochte inwerkinghen Gods in die hoochste crachte, daer God in werket overmids middel der gracien in menigher wijs.” 33  Br., 2: 179, 28-29: “sine eyghene woninghe, ende sijns selfs eewighe persoenlijke erfachticheit.”

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movement, “an eternal, minlijc inclination toward its higher unity, where the Father and the Son, in the bond of the Holy Spirit, are united with all the saints. And hereby he responds properly to the first stream, which calls for unity.”34 Ruusbroec’s treatment of this first influx of God’s grace is far shorter than his treatments of the second and third “streams,” and contains only one reference to any form of the term minne. Yet that one reference is significant, for by referring to this further movement of the unity of one’s own spirit to its higher unity in the Holy Trinity as being “an eternal, minlijc inclination,” Ruusbroec emphasizes once more that unitive aspect of minne which has been pointed out so many times already in this study and which is accordingly coming to appear more and more as the most fundamental aspect of all. The adornment of the understanding: The basic unity of the human spirit

Ruusbroec’s consideration of the second stream, which he describes as “a spiritual brightness which flows into and enlightens the understanding, revealing distinctions in various ways,”35 is important for purposes of this study mainly inasmuch as the “going forth” appropriate to this spiritual brightness reveals the Holy Spirit as the will or minne of the Father and the Son, together with all the other attributes of the three divine persons discussed already in the first chapter of this study. It should also be pointed out that the divine riches which are hereby revealed to the understanding produce above all “a special, interior joy of the spirit and a great sense of confidence in God; this interior joy embraces and penetrates all the powers of the soul and the unity of the spirit.”36 Ordinarily, one might associate such joy with the will more 34  Br., 2: 179, 32-180, 3; “een eewich minlijc neygen tot diere hogher eenicheit daer de Vader ende de Sone, in bande des Heilichs Gheests, vereenicht sijn met allen heilighen. Ende hier-met es hi der eerster rivieren, die eenicheit eyschet, ghenoech.” 35  Br., 2: 180, 9-10: “eene gheestelijcke claerheit die vloeyt ende licht inden verstaene, met ondersceede in menigher wisen.” 36  Br., 2: 183, 24-27: “eene zonderlinghe inwindighe vroude des gheests, ende een hoghe toeverlaet in God. Ende dese inwindighe vroude omveet ende doregheet alle de crachte der zielen ende eenicheit des gheests.”

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than with the understanding, but for Ruusbroec there are no air-tight distinctions separating the two faculties. As he writes elsewhere in his treatment of this second stream, The soul exists communally in all its powers and in the entire body and in all its members. And it is entire in each member, for one cannot divide it except by reason. For the highest powers and the lowest, spirit and soul, are distinguished according to reason, but are nevertheless one in reality. (Br., 2: 183, 9-14)

Die ziele es ghemeyne in allen crachten ende in alle den live ende in allen den leden. Ende in elcken lede al, want men machse niet deylen, het en si na redene. Want de overste crachte ende de nederste, gheest ende ziele hebben onderscheet na redene, nochtans eest een inder natueren.

This understanding of the fundamental unity of the human spirit was not unique with Ruusbroec. In the words of Albert Deblaere, one of the most knowledgeable scholars of the mysticism of the Low Countries, the human spirit “is gifted not only with the will, but also with the understanding, and these two powers are not to be distinguished as two different entities, but as two different aspects of one and the same spiritual act.”37 In turning now to Ruusbroec’s treatment of the third stream, in which it is the will that is to be supernaturally adorned and in which minne will be mentioned far more frequently than in his consideration of the first two streams, these remarks of Ruusbroec himself and of Deblaere will prevent any overly hasty restriction of minne to the activity of the will alone; the range of minne’s presence and activity is much broader than that, embracing the fullness of human reality and of God’s relationship with his creatures. The adornment of the will: Minne in the ways of “going forth” appropriate to this adornment

Although Ruusbroec continues the imagery of a spring with three streams flowing out from it, his definition of the third stream is in fact reminiscent of the sun imagery used to illustrate the various modes of 37  Albert Deblaere, S.J., De mystieke schrijfster Maria Petyt (1625-1677) (Ghent: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal-en Letterkunde, 1962), p. 66.

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the first coming of the bridegroom in “the interior life.” He writes of this stream as “a heat breathed into the soul,” which “enflames the will just like a fire and swallows up and consumes all things in unity, and flows over and through all the powers of the soul with rich gifts and special excellence, and produces in the will a finely wrought, spiritual minne excluding all effort.”38 To the person who has received this stream, Christ again says, “Go forth,” and this going forth will be by way of spiritual exercises directed to four groups: to God and his saints, to sinners on earth, to those suffering in purgatory, and to oneself and all good persons on earth. This going forth will not, however, be characterized by the distracted busyness found among beginners, for now the person will not only “go forth with an enlightened reason and overflowing karitate,” but will also and simultaneously “remain dwelling in the unity of his spirit, in the bond of minne.”39 Approximately the first half of the passage in which Ruusbroec describes the way in which one goes forth to God and to his saints has already been cited in the Preface to this study. This particular way of going forth is primarily a matter of becoming aware of God as “a flowing, ebbing sea which ceaselessly flows into all his gheminde, according to each one’s need and merits,” and secondarily a question of realizing that God in turn “demands minne and homage according to his worth.”40 The second half of this passage, not cited earlier, describes the attempt of creatures to respond to this demand: For this reason all spirits ceaselessly come together and produce a burning flame in minne so that they might complete the work of God’s being loved

Hier-omme vergaderen alle gheeste zonder onderlaet, ende maken eene berrende vlamme in minnen, op-datsi dat werc volvoeren mochten dat God

38  Br., 2: 184, 15: “eene inghegheeste hitte,” and 183, 32-184, 5: “ontfunct den wille ghelijc den viere, ende verslindet ende verteret alle dinc in eenicheit, ende overvloeyt ende dorevloeyt alle de crachte der zielen met rijeken gaven ende met zonderlingher edelheit, ende si maket in den wille eene subtile gheestelijcke minne zonder aerbeit.” 39  Br., 2: 184, 23-26: “ute-gaen met verlichter redenen ende met overvloedigher karitaten” and “in bande van minnen, wonende bliven in eenicheit sijns gheests.” 40  Br., 2: 185, 10-11: “eene vloeyende ebbende zee die zonder onderlaet vloeyt in alle sine gheminde, na elcs behoeven ende weerde,” and 185, 16: “eyschet hi minne ende eere na sijn weerde.”

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(ghemint) according to his excellence. Reason clearly reveals that this is impossible for creatures. But minne always wills the fulfillment of minne, or else to be dissolved and burnt and come to nothing in its failure. Nevertheless God remains unloved (onghement) by all creatures according to his worth. And this is for the enlightened reason a great pleasure and felicity: that its God and Lief is so high and so rich that he transcends all created powers and is loved (ghemint) by no one other than himself according to his worth. (Br., 2: 185, 23-34)

ghemint worde na sine edelheit. Redene toent clare dat der creatueren ommogelijc is. Maer minne wilt emmer minne volbringhen, ochte versmelten ende verberren ende te niete werden in hare faelgieren. Nochtan blivet God onghement na weerde van allen creatueren. Ende dat es verlichter redenen een grote walost ende ghenoechlijcheit, dat hare God ende hare Lief soe hoghe ende soe rijeke es, dat Hi allen ghescapenen crachten onthoghet ende van niemenne ghemint en es na sine weerde dan van Hem selven.

The affective quality of minne in this passage is evident from the imagery of “a burning flame in minne”; the minne that is required of the creature is here closely related to the “homage” (eere) with which it is associated in the first half of the entire passage. It is a question of honoring, praising, and glorifying God for all he has done for us, and, as Ruusbroec notes, this response can never be as pure and intense as would befit the infinity of God’s minne toward us. All minnende creatures constantly strive to love their God with all the purity and intensity due him, and even in their inevitably falling short they take delight in the divine transcendence which causes them to fall short. Of a rather different character is the second kind of going forth, that which is directed toward sinners, but here too minne is fundamental: This person will at times descend to sinners with great compassion and with generous mercy, and bring them to God with interior devotion and much prayer, and remind God of all the goodness that he is and that he is capable of and that he did for us and promised us, just as if he himself had forgotten it. For he wishes to be asked, and karitate wishes to have everything that it desires. Nevertheless it does not wish to be stubborn or self-willed, but it leaves

Dese mensche sal bi wilen nedergaen ten zondaren met groter compassien ende met melder ontfermicheit, ende draghense te Gode met innigher devocien ende met groten ghebede; ende vermanen Gode alle dies goeds dat Hi es ende dat Hi vermach ende dat Hi ons ghedaen ende gheloeft heeft, rechte als ochte Hijs vergheten hadde. Want Hi wilt ghebeden sijn; ende karitate wilt al hebben datsi begheert. Nochtan en wilt si niet crighelich noch eenwillich sijn, maer si bevelet al

CHAPTER FOUR everything to the rich goodness and generosity of God, for God loves (mint) without limit. And in this the minnende remains most at peace. For since this person has a minne common to all, he prays and desires that God might let his minne and his mercy flow forth upon heathens and Jews and all unbelievers so that he might be loved (ghemint) and confessed and praised in heaven, and so that our glory and joy and peace might be increased to the ends of the earth. This is the second going forth, that to sinners. (Br., 2: 186, 11-28)

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der rijcker goeden ende der meltheit Gods; want God sonder mate mint. Ende hier in blivet de minnende best te-vreden. Want nu dese mensche eene ghemeyne minne dreghet, soe biddet hi ende begheert dat God late vloeyen sine minne ende sine ontfermicheit in heidene ende in Joden ende in alle onghelovighe menschen, op-dat Hi ghemint ende bekint ende ghelovet worde in hemelrijcke, ende dat onse glorie ende vroude ende vrede ghemeeret worde in allen inden van eertrijcke. Dit es dat ander uutgaen ten zondaren.

In this passage, a person’s minne for sinners is basically his desire that such persons be converted and live. The minnende person “prays and desires” that God bestow his own minne upon sinners with the expectation that this would be returned by them in expressions of love and praise. The universal character of minne, that is, its being extended to all sinners, is also evident in this passage. Very similar is one’s going forth to those in purgatory, for here again one prays to God for them, beseeching his clemency and mercy and reminding him that these persons “died in minne and that all their confidence resides in his passion and in his clemency.”41 Once again, then, Ruusbroec makes it clear that the basic criterion according to which one is either saved or damned is the presence or absence of minne at the hour of death. The fourth and final kind of going forth is to oneself and all persons of good will. The root of their goodness is clearly their minne, for Ruusbroec writes that one will “savor and note the solidarity and unanimity that they have in minne, and will pray and beseech God that he let his customary gifts flow forth so that these persons might remain steadfast in his minne and in his eternal glory.”42 He goes on to note that one’s 41

 Br., 2: 186, 34-187, 2: “ghestorven sijn in minnen, ende al hare toeverlaet steet in sire passiën ende in sijnder ghenadicheit.” 42  Br., 2: 187, 14-18: “smaken ende merken die vergadertheit ende die eendrachticheit die si hebben in minnen, ende sal begheren ende bidden Gode, dat hi late

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minne is common toward all persons of good will and that it will express itself in teaching and instructing others, reproving them when necessary, and in general serving all men. Christ as our model for “going forth”: Conclusions about liefde, karitate, and “blissful minne.”

Just as Ruusbroec concluded his treatment of the first coming of Christ in “the interior life” by showing that Christ himself is the model for the various ways of going forth appropriate to that coming, he concludes his discussion of the second coming in the same way. What he here writes of the universality of Christ’s minne has for the most part been presented already in the second chapter of this study, with the exception of Ruusbroec’s description of Christ’s giving of himself in the Eucharist and of our response to that gift. This passage provides a helpful summary of what has been found thus far concerning Ruusbroec’s understanding of minne and its relationship with karitate and liefde and will accordingly be considered here. Ruusbroec teaches that in the sacrament of the Eucharist Christ “comes down to us with minlijc affection and great desire and bodily delight,”43 giving us his body and blood, his spirit, his very person. Our appropriate response to this Eucharistic coming will be on various levels, beginning with the lowest: When a person has worthily reflected upon and considered this, then he will meet Christ according to all the ways in which Christ comes to him. He will raise himself up to meet Christ with heart, with desire, with felt liefde, with all his powers and with desirous longing. It was thus that Christ received himself. And this yearning cannot be too great,

Alse de mensche dit weerdelijcke herdacht ende ghemerket hevet, soe sal hi Cristum ontmoeten na alle diere wijs dat Cristus te hem comt. Hi sal hem verheffen Cristum te ontfane met herten, met begheerten, met ghevoelijcker liefden, met allen sinen crachten ende met begherlijcker ghelost. Ende aldus ontfinc Cristus Hem selven.

vloeyen sine ghewoenlijcke gaven, op-datsi ghestadich bliven in sire minnen ende in sire eewigher eeren.” 43  Br., 2: 192, 5-7: “neyghet tot ons, met minlijcker affeccien ende met groter begheerten ende met lijflijcker ghelost.”

CHAPTER FOUR for our nature is to receive its own nature, that is, Christ’s glorified humanity, full of joy and majesty. Therefore I wish that a person be dissolved and enter into himself with desire, joy, and delight at this meeting, for he is meeting and being united with the one who is most beautiful and most gracious and minlijcst of all the sons of men … When a person at this meeting reflects upon the martyrdom and the sufferings of this precious body of Christ, he sometimes comes to such a minlijc devotion and felt compassion that he desires to be nailed with Christ to the cross and to pour forth his heart’s blood to the honor of Christ. And he presses himself into the wounds and into the open heart of Christ his Savior. Many revelations and many good things have often been given to men in these exercises. This felt, compassionate liefde and the strong imagination marked by an interior consideration of the wounds of Christ can be so great that it seems to the person that he felt the wounds and pains of Christ in his own heart and in all his members. And if any person were truly to bear the marks of the wounds of our Lord in any manner, it would be this person. And in this way we respond properly to Christ according to the lowest part of his humanity. (Br., 2: 192, 26-193, 4 & 193, 7-24)

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Ende dese ghelost en mach niet te groot sijn, want onse natuere ontfeet hare natuere, dat es Cristus menscheit, glorificeert, vol vrouden ende weerdicheden. Hier-omme wille ic dat de mensche in desen ontfane versmelte ende invliete van begherten, van vrouden ende van welden. Want hi ontfeet ende werdet gheeenicht met Den-ghenen die de scoenste ende de gracioeste ende de minlijcste es boven alle sonen der menschen … . Alse de mensche herdinct in desen ontfane der martilien ende dies lidens dies precioes Lichamen Cristi dien hi ontfeet, soe comt hi bi wilen in selcke minlijcke devocie ende ghevoelijcke compassie, dat hi begheert met Cristo ghenaghelt te sine ane den cruce, ende dat hi begheert sijn herte-bloet te stortene in die eere Cristi. Ende hi druct hem in die wonden ende in die openne herte Cristi sijns Behouders. In deser oefeninghen es den mensche dicwile vele vertonens ende vele goeds ghesciet. Dese ghevoelijcke liefde met compassien, ende die sterke ymaginacie met innighen ghemercke in die wonden Cristi, die mochte soe groot sijn, dat den mensche soude duncken dat hi ghevoelde der wonden ende der quetsueren Cristi in sine herte ende in alle sine lede. Ende soude eenich mensche ghewaerlijcke de teekene der wonden ons Heeren ontfaen in enigher wijs, dat soude dese mensche sijn. Ende hier mede doen wij Cristum ghenoech naden nedersten deele sire menscheit.

This part of the passage concerns only the response to the Eucharistic Christ as the latter comes into the lowest of the three unities, the unity of the bodily powers. Correspondingly the response is from that unity, from “the heart,” and so is markedly affective: there are several references to “felt liefde,” to compassion with Christ in his bodily sufferings and a

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yearning to reproduce such sufferings in one’s own life, and in general to the place of the emotions and the imagination in the spiritual life. What uses there are of adjectival forms of minne are themselves affective, especially the reference to “a minlijc devotion and felt compassion” of such intensity that one “desires to be nailed with Christ to the cross.” (Ruusbroec thereby teaches that the devout reception of the Eucharist so conforms a person to the sufferings of Christ that if anyone were to receive the stigmata in any sense, this would be someone who approached the Eucharist in this way.) This passage contains the very last use of the term liefde in the entire Brulocht and permits the certain conclusion that in this treatise liefde is located by Ruusbroec in the realm of the emotions, where it represents the affective aspect of minne. Ruusbroec then concludes this passage on the Eucharist with relatively brief descriptions of our response to Christ’s coming at levels above that of “the heart.” Of the unity of the spirit, he writes that we will both abide in that unity and at the same time “flow forth with an ample karitate in heaven and on earth, with clear discernment,”44 adding that in this way we will come to bear a likeness to Christ “according to the spirit” (naden gheeste). Lastly, he teaches that we will also “with a single intent and with blissful minne transcend ourselves and the created nature of Christ and rest in our heritage, that is, in the divine being for eternity.”45 The distinction which Ruusbroec makes here between karitate, by which one actively goes forth, and “blissful minne” (ghebrukelijcke minne), by which one rests in God eternally, is one which he will develop at far greater length further on in this second book of the Brulocht. More definitive conclusions about this distinction will be made once these later passages have been studied; for now it may simply be noted that karitate is here, as often previously, associated with activity, with “going forth,” while beyond this there is an aspect of minne, indicated here by the qualifying expression ghebrukelijc, which transcends good works and is characterized by resting blissfully in 44  Br., 2: 193, 25-26: “ute-vloeyen met wider karitaten in hemel ende in eerde, met claerre beschedenheit.” 45  Br., 2: 193, 28-31: “met eenvoldigher meyninghen ende met ghebrukelijcke minne overliden ons selven ende Cristus ghescapenheit, ende rusten in onse Erve, dat es dat godlijcke Wesen in eewicheit.”

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God. Something of the nature of this rest will be seen in Ruusbroec’s treatment of the third and final coming of the bridegroom in “the interior life,” which is next to be studied. The Third Coming: In the Inmost Part of Our Spirit The genesis of the inward touch

Near the beginning of the section treating the third coming, Ruusbroec refers again to these complementary aspects of karitate and minne, saying that no one can receive this third coming except the person whose life is characterized by “flowing forth in generous karitate in heaven and on earth, and ascending and flowing back with homage and reverence into the same ground and into the same high unity of God from which all flowing forth comes. For every creature, inasmuch as it is given more and more gifts from God, has correspondingly more and more of an upwards-tending minne and an interior inclination toward its source.”46 Here, karitate is seen as the epitome of virtuous, “outgoing” activity, while to minne is reserved the movement back to “the same high unity of God from which all flowing forth comes.” It is above all this unitive tendency of minne which gives rise to the third coming of the bridegroom in “the interior life,” as is evident from Ruusbroec’s statement that “by means of the minlijc attraction of God and his interior working in the interiority of our spirit, and by means of our burning minne and the entire impulse of all our powers into the same unity wherein God dwells, there springs forth the third coming of Christ in interior exercises, and this is an inward stirring or touch of Christ in his divine brightness in the inmost part of our spirit.”47 46

 Br., 2: 196, 9-15: “ute-vloeyende in melder karitaten in hemel ende in eerde, ende opdraghende ende wedervloeyende met eeren ende met weerdicheden inden selven gronde ende in die hoghe eenicheit Gods daer alle vloeyen ute comt; want elcke creatuere na dat si meer ende meer gheghavet es van Gode, daer na hevet si meer ende meer opdragender minnen ende innichs toevoeghens in haren oerspronc.” 47  Br., 2: 196, 21-27: “Overmids dat minlijcke neyghen Gods ende sijn innighe werken in innicheit ons gheests, ende overmids onse berrende minne ende gheheel indruc al onser crachte in die selve eenicheit daer God in woent, soe ontspringhet die derde toecomst Cristi in innigher oefeninghen. Ende dit es een inwindich rueren ochte gherinen Cristi in sire godlijcker claerheit, in dat innichste ons gheests.”

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Continuing the imagery of the spring with three streams issuing forth from it, Ruusbroec compares this touch with the vein of living water welling up from underground and supplying the spring with its water. Here no one but God alone is at work, “for this is a divine work and the source and influx of all graces and gifts, and the last intermediary between God and the creature. Above this touch, in the still being of the spirit, hovers an incomprehensible splendor, and that is the exalted Trinity from which this touch proceeds. There God lives and reigns in the spirit, and the spirit in God.”48 The “storm of minne” as the “going forth” appropriate to this coming: Basic findings about minne and its relationship with karitate

Once again Christ calls the person to “go forth,” and it becomes clear at once that the going forth appropriate to this third coming of the bridegroom will be primarily a going forth in minne, for Ruusbroec writes that although the splendor of God in this touch is so great that the “reason and understanding fail before the divine splendor and remain outside the door, the minnende power wills nevertheless to go forward, for it has been called and invited just as has the understanding, but it is blind and wishes to enjoy – and enjoyment lies more in savoring and in feeling than in understanding.”49 The several references in this passage to enjoyment (ghebruken) recall the findings noted already in the first chapter of this study, namely, that there is in minne not only an aspect of activity (werc) but also an aspect of rest 48  Br., 2: 197, 17-24: “Want dit es een godlijc werc ende oerspronc ende inval alre gracien ende alre gaven, ende dat leste middel tusschen Gode ende de creatuere. Ende boven dit gherinen inden stillen wesene dies gheests swevet eene ombegripelijcke claerheit, ende dat es die hoghe Drivoldicheit daer dit gherinen ute comt. Daer levet ende regneeret God inden gheeste ende die gheest in Gode.” 49  Br., 2: 198, 35-199, 5: “al eest dat redene ende verstannesse failliert jeghen die godlijcke claerheit ende butenvore die porte blivet, die minnende cracht wilt nochtan voert, want si es gheeyschet ende ghenodet ghelijc den verstane, ende si es blent, ende wilt ghebruken; ende ghebruken leghet meer in smaken ende in ghevoelen dan in verstane.” Ruusbroec later says “the minnende power” is “the will” (Br., 2: 219, 3: “die wille, dat es die minnende cracht.”)

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and enjoyment. However, the mere reference to the term “enjoyment” is most inadequate for conveying all that Ruusbroec understands by the desire of the minnende person for enjoyment in and of God. Perhaps nowhere in the Brulocht is the ferocity of this desire more evident than in the following passage taken from this section on the divine touch: Here begins an eternal hunger which will nevermore be satisfied. This is an interior craving and striving of the minnende power and of the created spirit for an uncreated good. And because the spirit desires to enjoy, and has been called and invited to this by God, it always wills to bring it about. Behold, here begins an eternal craving and striving that eternally falls short … . God’s interior stirring and touch makes us hunger and strive, for the Spirit of God pursues our spirit. The more there is of the touch, the more there is of hunger and striving. And this is a minne-life in its highest working, above reason and understanding; for reason can here neither give nor take away minne, since our minne has been touched by divine minne. And as I understand it, there is here no more separation from God. God’s touch in us, as far as we feel it, and our minlijc striving are both created and creaturely, and for this reason may grow and increase as long as we live. In this storm of minne two spirits struggle – the Spirit of God and our spirit. God, by means of the Holy Spirit, inclines toward us, and hereby we are touched in minne. And our spirit, by means of God’s working and the minnende power, inclines and impels itself toward God, and hereby God is touched. From these two there arises the struggle of minne: in that deepest

Hier beghint een eewich hongher die nummermeer vervult en wert. Dat es een inwindich ghiren ende crighen der minnender cracht ende dies ghescapens gheests in een ongescapen Goet. Ende want die gheest ghebruken begheert, ende hi daer-toe van Gode gheeyshet ende ghenodet is, so wilt hijt emmer volbringhen. Siet hier beghint een eewich gieren ende voertcrighen in een eewich ontbliven … . Gods inwindighe rueren ende gherinen maect ons hongherich ende doet ons crighen, want die gheest Gods jaghet onsen gheest: soe meer gherinens soe meer honghers ende crighens. Ende dit es minne-leven in haren hoochsten werken, boven redene ende verstaen; want redene en mach hier der minnen gheven noch nemen, want onse minne es van godlijcker minnen gherenen. Ende na mijnen verstane en is hier van Gode nemmermeer gheen sceyden. Gods gherinen in ons, also verre als wijs ghevoelen, ende ons minlijcke crighen es beide ghescapen ende creatuerlijc, ende hier-omme maghet wassen ende toenemen alsoe lange als wij leven. In desen storme van minnen striden twee gheeste, die gheest Gods ende onzen gheest. God, overmids den Heilighen Gheest, neyghet Hem in ons, ende hier-af werde wij in minnen gherenen. Ende onse gheest, overmids Goods werc ende de minnende cracht, druct ende neyghet hem in Gode, ende hier-af wert God gherenen. Van desen tween ontspringhet der minnen strijt: in dat diepste

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meeting and in the most interior and sharpest encounter, each spirit is indwelt by minne. These two spirits, that is, our spirit and God’s Spirit, shine and cast light one upon the other, and each reveals to the other its face. This makes the spirits strive for each other in minne after the manner of spouses. Each requires of the other what it is, and offers to the other and invites it to accept what it is. This makes the minnende lose himself in the other. God’s touch and his giving, our minlijc striving and our giving in return – this is what establishes minne firmly. This flux and reflux makes the spring of minne overflow. Thus God’s touch and our striving in minne become a onefold minne. Here the person is possessed by minne in such a way that he must forget himself and God and knows nothing except minne. Thus the spirit is consumed in the fire of minne and comes so deeply into God’s touch that it is conquered in all its striving and comes to nought in all its works; it exhausts itself and itself becomes minne above all exercises of devotion and possesses the inmost part of its creaturehood above all virtue, there where all creaturely activity begins and ends. This is minne in itself, the foundation and ground of all virtues. (Br., 2: 199, 7-14 & 199, 32-201, 2)

ghemoeten ende in dat innichste ende scaerpste bezuken wert elc gheest van minnen ghewont. Dese twee gheeste, dat es onse gheest ende Gods gheest, blicken ende lichten die een inden anderen, ende elc toent den anderen sijn aenschijn. Dit doet een paerlijcke die gheeste met minnen den eenen inden anderen crighen. Elc eyschet den anderen dat hi es, ende elc biedet ende nodet den anderen dat hi es. Dit doet de minnende vervlieten. Gods gherinen ende sijn gheven, onse minlijcke crighen ende onse wedergheven, dit houdet ghestede die minne. Dit vloeyen ende dit wedervloeyen doet overvloeyen die fonteyne der minnen. Aldus wert Gods gherinen ende onser minnen crighen eene eenvoldighe minne. Hier wert de mensche van minnen beseten, dat hi sijns selfs ende Gods moet vergheten, ende niet en weet dan minne. Aldus wert die gheest verberret int vier der minnen, ende comt soe diepe in Gods gherinen, dat hi wert verwonnen in al sijn crighen, ende gheet te niete in al sijn werken; ende werket hem ute, ende wert selve minne boven al toevoeghen, ende besit dat innichste sire ghescapenheit, boven alle doechde, daer alle creatuerlijcke werke beghinnen ende inden. Dit es minne in haer selven, fundament ende gront van alle doechden.

Of this powerful passage several points may be made. First, what Ruusbroec calls the “minne-life” is, at this level, clearly something far different from that life of soft, gentle yearning for God that is, in the popular mind, often associated with “love for God.” The terms that Ruusbroec here employs are almost entirely ones of fierce struggle: “the storm of minne,” “the struggle of minne,” “the most interior and sharpest encounter,” and “an eternal hunger which will nevermore be satisfied.” Secondly, minne is here so all-consuming

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that Ruusbroec writes that the person experiencing this storm “must forget himself and God and knows nothing except minne.” In other words, the unitive aspect of minne is in this third coming so predominant that, in terms of awareness, the person is no longer mindful of distinctions; his spirit “itself becomes minne” – a statement which in this context, with its references to forgetfulness of oneself and of God, must certainly be understood psychologically and not ontologically. Lastly, the references to this struggle’s occurring “above all virtue” and to the person’s spirit’s “coming to nought in all its works” could rather easily be understood in a quietistic sense if read apart from what Ruusbroec adds in lines directly following upon the passage just cited, for it then becomes clear that the mystic sees this particular experience as being most conducive to virtuous activity. Ruusbroec writes: Now our spirit and this minne are living and fruitful in virtues. And therefore the powers [of the spirit] cannot remain in the unity of the spirit, for the incomprehensible splendor of God and his fathomless minne abide above the spirit and stir the minnende power, and [so] the spirit again descends to activity, in a higher and more interior striving than ever before. And the more interior and excellent it is, the more quickly it exhausts itself in minne and descends again to new works. And this is a heavenly life. Constantly the avid spirit craves to eat and swallow God, but it remains itself swallowed up in God’s touch and becomes unable to proceed in all its work and becomes minne itself above all works. For in the unity of the spirit there is a union of the highest powers, and here grace and minne abide essentially, above works, for this is the source of karitate and of all virtue. Here there is an eternal flowing forth in karitate and in virtues, and an eternal movement inward in an interior hunger for savoring God, and an eternal abiding in onefold minne.

Nu es onse gheest ende dese minne levendich ende vruchtbaer in duechden. Ende hier-omme en moghen die crachte in eenicheit des gheests niet ghedueren. Want die ombegripelijcke claerheit Gods ende sine grondelose minne houdet hare boven den gheest, ende roeret die minnende cracht; ende die gheest valt weder in sijn werken, in hogher ende in innegher crighen dan hi nie te voren was. Ende soe hi innigher ende edelre es, soe hi hem snelre uut-werket te niete in minnen, ende valt weder in nuwe werken. Ende dit es hemels leven. Altoes waent die ghierighe gheest Gode eeten ende verswelghen, maer hi blivet in Gods gherinen selve verswolghen, ende faliert in al sijn werken, ende wert selve minne boven alle werken. Want in eenicheit des gheest es eeninghe der overster crachte, ende hier es gracie ende minne weselijcke, boven wercken, want dit es die oerspronc der karitaten ende alre doechde. Hier es een eewich ute-vloeyen in karitaten, ende in doechden, ende een eewich inkeeren in innighen honghere om Gods te ghesmaken, ende een eewich inbliven in eenvoldigher minnen.

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And this is all in a creaturely manner and beneath God. And this is the most interior exercise which one can practice in the created light, in heaven and on earth; and above this there is nothing except a contemplative life in the divine light and according to God’s manner. In these exercises one cannot stray or be deceived, and it begins here in grace and will last eternally in glory. (Br., 2: 201, 3-28)

Ende dit es al creatuerelijcker-wijs ende beneden Gode. Ende dit es de innichste oefeninghe diemen pleghen mach in ghescapenen lichte, in hemel ende in eerde; ende boven dit en es niet dan een godscouwende leven in godlijcken lichte ende na der wise Gods. In deser oefeninghen en machmen niet dolen noch bedroghen werden, ende si beghint hier in der gracien ende sal eewelijck dueren inder glorien.

From these lines it is evident that when Ruusbroec here writes of minne as being “above works” it is in the sense of being the source of virtuous activity, what he had just previously called “the foundation and ground of all virtues,” and not at all in the sense of having no relation at all to such works. What one finds is in fact a Neo-Platonic threefold dialectical relationship, with all three poles of this dialectic occurring simultaneously: “an eternal flowing forth in karitate and in virtues,” “an eternal movement inward in an interior hunger for savoring God,” and lastly “an eternal abiding in onefold minne.”50 Inasmuch as the long passage cited above concerning the “storm of minne” reveals that the second element in this dialectic – the “movement inward” – takes place in, through, and toward minne, it seems that Ruusbroec associates karitate particularly with the first element, the movement outward in good works, and minne with both the second and third – the movement inward and the rest that one enjoys at the term of this movement. While some further precisions will have to be made in this schema when considering Ruusbroec’s treatment of the fourth and final part of book two of the Brulocht, the basic findings noted above will in fact be confirmed: for Ruusbroec, karitate is the aspect of love that expresses itself in virtuous activity, while minne is above all (though not exclusively) the love which, coming forth from God himself, draws us back to union with him and epitomizes the joy of resting in him once that union is 50

 For the Neo-Platonic paradigm in Ruusbroec’s mystical theology, see Bernard McGinn, “Essential Themes in Ruusbroec’s Mysticism,” in A Companion to John of Ruusbroec, ed. John Arblaster and Rob Faesen (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014), pp. 13078, esp. 131-45.

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attained. Since Ruusbroec concludes the combined second and third parts of book two with the long passage just cited, his treatment of the phrase “to meet him,” in the fourth part of book two, will now be taken up. Minne and Karitate in Section Four of Book Two Introductory Remarks on the Two Meetings or Unions with Christ At the beginning of this final part of the second book of the Brulocht Ruusbroec writes that all the interior, spiritual “beholding” discussed in the first part of this book and all the “virtuous going forth” considered in the combined second and third parts have as their goal “a meeting and a union in Christ our bridegroom, for he is our eternal rest and the goal and reward of all our work.”51 The foundation of the possibility of such a union is the union we already have in God simply by nature (van natueren), without which the creature would fall into a state of pure nothingness. “This makes us neither holy nor saved, for all persons possess this, good and bad alike; but it is the principle of all holiness and salvation.”52 Ruusbroec goes on to say that such holiness itself consists in a twofold meeting with Christ, one with the intermediary of grace and divine gifts, the other without intermediary. As will be clear from the following passage, the first of these meetings occurs on the level whereby we are fashioned in the “likeness” of God, while the second is associated with our being made in God’s “image”: Whenever God finds in us a capacity for receiving his grace, he wills of his free goodness to give us life and make us like him by means of his gifts. This occurs every time we turn to him with our whole will, for in that same moment Christ comes to us and into us with

Wanneer God yet hebbelijcheiden in ons vendet sine gracie te ontfane, soe wilt Hi ons van vryer goeden levendich maken ende Hem ghelijc overmids sine gaven. Dat es altoes alse wij met gheheelen wille tot Hem keeren. Want in dien selven oghenblicke comt Cristus tot ons ende

51  Br., 2: 202, 13-15: “een ontmoet ende een vereenighen in Cristo onsen Brudegom, want Hi es onse eewighe Ruste, ende Inde ende Loen al ons arbeits.” 52  Br., 2: 204, 11-13: “Dit en maect ons heylich noch salich, want dit hebben alle menschen in hem, goede ende quade; maer dit es wel die ieerste sake alre heylicheit ende alre salicheit.”

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intermediaries and without intermediary, that is, with gifts and above all gifts. And we also come to him and into him with intermediaries and without intermediary, that is, with virtues and above all virtues. And he impresses his image and his likeness upon us, that is, himself and his gifts, and he frees us from sin and makes us free and like himself. And in this same work whereby God frees us from sin and makes us like himself and free in karitate, the spirit sinks into itself in blissful minne. And here there occurs a meeting and a union which is without intermediary and supernatural, wherein our highest bliss lies. Although it is completely natural to God that he give gifts out of minne and gratuitous goodness, it is, according to our condition, something accidental and supernatural. For we were previously strangers and unlike God, and afterwards have received likeness and union with God. (Br., 2: 205, 9-31)

in ons, met middele ende zonder middele, dat es met gaven ende boven alle gaven. Ende wij comen oec tot Hem ende in Hem met middele ende zonder middel, dat es met doechden ende boven alle doechde. Ende Hi druckt sijn beelde ende sijn ghelijckenisse in ons, dat es Hem selven ende sine gaven; ende lost ons van sonden, ende maect ons vri ende ghelijc Hem selven. Ende in desen selven werke dat ons God loest van zonden ende ghelijc ende vri maect in karitaten, soe ontsinct de gheest hem selven in ghebrukelijcker minne. Ende hier ghesciet een ontmoet ende eene vereeninghe die sonder middel es, ende overnatuerlijcke, daer onse hoochste salicheit in gheleghet. Al eest Gode al natuerlijcke dat Hi van minnen ende van vrier goeden ghevet, het es ons toevallich ende overnatuerlijcke na onser wijs. Want wij vore vremde ende onghelijc waren, ende namaels ghelijcheit ende eenicheit met Gode vercrigen.

In accordance with what has already been seen of Ruusbroec’s association of karitate with virtuous activity, it is not at all surprising that he writes that the meeting whereby we become “like” (ghelijc) God, through the intermediary of virtuous works, occurs “in karitate,” whereas the other meeting, associated with God’s impressing his image upon us “above all virtues,” occurs when “the spirit sinks into itself in blissful minne (ghebrukelijcker minne).” This latter meeting is clearly the more intimate, since Ruusbroec equates God’s image with God himself, whereas God’s likeness is said to be his gifts (“And he impresses his image and his likeness upon us, that is, himself and his gifts.”). But as so often, it is important to see these two meetings as being not necessarily separate in time. The person who enjoys that direct union with God which Ruusbroec here describes as God’s impressing of his image upon the person will simultaneously bear the likeness of God, evidenced by

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the performance of good works in karitate. This simultaneity is several times brought out in the passage cited above, first by Ruusbroec’s saying that Christ’s coming to us both with and without intermediary occurs in one and the same moment (in dien selven oghenblicke) and next by the mystic’s saying that when God “makes us like himself and free in karitate,” then “in this same work” (in desen selven werke) the person enters into himself in blissful minne and thereby attains God directly (that is, God’s “image”). The strongly unitive connotation of the term “image” for Ruusbroec is evident in the fact that he often contrasts “likeness” and “union” rather than “likeness” and “image,” as in the last sentence of the long passage just cited (“For we were previously strangers and unlike God, and afterwards have received likeness and union with God.”). Concerning this particular contrast between likeness and union, the Benedictines of Saint-Paul de Wisques, who translated the treatise into French earlier in the twentieth century, make the following observation: In the supernatural life God gives us a twofold gift: first he gives us sanctifying grace together with the virtues which derive from it, and then, beyond this grace, he gives himself by coming to dwell in the essence of our soul. This is what leads Ruusbroec to distinguish a twofold union with God: the union with intermediaries (grace and the virtues), which confers upon us a likeness with God, and the union without intermediary, by which the soul rests directly in God himself and savors his intimate presence in its depths. Here there is no longer merely likeness with God, there is a union with him by means of the love of fruition [in Ruusbroec’s terminology, by means of ghebrukelijcker minne]. In the following chapters, Ruusbroec constantly contrasts the “likeness” (or active union) with this “union of fruition” with God, which is thoroughly a union of repose.53

53  Bénédictins de Saint-Paul de Wisques, Translation and notes for Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck 1’Admirable, vol. 3: L’ornement des noces spirituelles (Paris and Brussels: Vromant, 1920), p. 165, ftnt. 2.

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The Union through Intermediaries The ordering of this union according to the Spirit’s gifts

In the remaining sections of this final part of book two, Ruusbroec discusses at considerable length these two different kinds of union. Concerning the union through intermediaries, he writes that there is a certain ordering or progression in virtue and in holiness and illustrates this order by means of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, linking each gift with one or more of the comings of Christ in “the active life” and “the interior life.” Thus, the gifts of fear of the Lord, piety, and knowledge are presented as especially instrumental for growth in “the active life,” the gift of fortitude is seen as especially needful for responding to the first two modes of Christ’s first coming in “the interior life” and the gift of counsel for responding to the other two modes of that first coming, the gift of understanding is said to be the gift which enables us to respond to the bridegroom’s second coming in this life and the gift of wisdom is similarly associated with the third coming, the divine touch. This kind of correlation will almost certainly strike a modern reader as overly contrived and it is not necessary for purposes of this study to study in detail the teaching of Ruusbroec concerning these gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially since much of what he here writes simply recapitulates material presented earlier in the treatise. There are, however, a number of important references to minne and karitate in this part of the Brulocht and these should be carefully considered. The first three gifts

Concerning the person who has cooperated with the first three gifts of the Holy Spirit, those which Ruusbroec associates with “the active life,” it is said that such a person not only bears a likeness to the Holy Trinity (inasmuch as he is obedient to the Father, reasonable and full of discretion after the manner of the Son, and generous and kind after the manner of the Holy Spirit) but also “rests in God by means of minne and the singleness of his intention. And in this the entire active life

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consists.”54 Once more, then, minne is explicitly associated with resting in God. The gift of counsel

When Ruusbroec treats the gift of counsel, associated with the third and fourth modes of Christ’s coming in “the interior life” (that is, his coming in the “fierce ardor of minne” and his subsequent withdrawal and apparent abandonment of the person who had previously rejoiced in his presence), he does so primarily in terms of minne’s dedication and submission to God’s will: The spirit of counsel works in him in a twofold way, for he who abandons himself and all things and speaks with insatiable, tempestuous, burning minne the words “Thy kingdom come” is great and follows the rule and counsel of God, while he who overcomes and renounces his own will in minne and speaks to God in submissive reverence, saying “Thy will be done in all things – not my will,” is still greater and follows more closely the counsel of God … . … Whoever is willing to do great things is willing to suffer great things; but to suffer and endure in self-abandonment is more excellent and more pleasing to God and more satisfying to our spirit than are great works [done] in the same abandonment, for it is more contrary to our nature. And therefore the spirit is more exalted and nature more humbled through great suffering than through great works done with the same minne. (Br., 2: 214, 2-11 & 215, 6-13)

Soe werket de gheest des rades in hem tweevoldelijcke, want hi es groot, ende volghet der ordenen ende den rade Gods, die hem selven laet ende alle dinc, ende spreect met onghepayder woedigher berrender minnen: “Toecome dijn rijcke.” Ende hi es noch meerre, ende volghet badt den rade Gods, die sijns selfs willen verwint ende vertijt in minnen ende spreect te Gode in onderworpender weerdicheit: “Dinen wille ghescie in allen dinghen, niet de mine.” … … Die willich es grote dinghe te werkene, hi es willich grote dinge te lijdene; maer doghen ende lijden in ghelatenheiden es eedelre ende Gode weerdere ende onsen gheeste ghenoechlijckere dan grote werke inder selver ghelatenheit, want het es onser natueren meer contrarie. Ende hier-omme wert de gheest meer ghehoghet ende natuere meer ghedruct in swaer lijden dan in groot werken in ghelijcker minnen.

54  Br., 2: 211, 28-30: “rast in Gode overmids minne ende sire meyninghen eenvoldicheit. Ende hier-in besteet al dat werkende leven.”

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This passage is a perfect example of something which was pointed out by one of the early members of the Ruusbroecgenootschap, Jozef Van Mierlo, as characteristic of the medieval mystics of Germany and the Low Countries, namely, the essential place of submission to God’s will in the creature’s union with God through minne. In Van Mierlo’s words, according to these mystics union with God, our return to unity, is the work of love, of the will. For this reason, it is incumbent upon man to strive to make his will conform to the will of God in all things: in all things to will with God what God wills. This is the meaning of divinization, of being conformed to God. Accordingly, the teaching concerning the need for a general abandonment of one’s own will in all things and for a thorough submission to the will of God became one of the principal teachings of Germanic mysticism.55 The gift of understanding: The interrelationship between minne and karitate

From his consideration of the gift of counsel Ruusbroec proceeds to the gift of understanding. Of all passages in the Brulocht it is perhaps this one which shows in greatest detail the interrelationship between minne and karitate and the place they have in a person’s coming to live in union with God. For this reason it is important to quote from this section at some length before commenting on it: The grace of God, which is a foundation of all gifts, maintains itself essentially like a single light in our possible intellect. And by means of this single light our spirit is established, made one, and enlightened, full of grace and divine gifts. And here it is like God by means of grace and divine minne.

De gracie Gods die een fondament es alre gaven, die houdet hare weselijc alse een eenvuldich licht in onsen moghelijcken verstane. Ende overmids dit eenvoldighe licht wert onse gheest ghestedicht, eenvuldich, verclaert, vol gracien ende godlijcker gaven. Ende hier es hi ghelijc Gode overmids gracie ende godlijcke minne.

55  Jozef Van Mierlo, “Over het onstaan der germaansche mystiek,” Ons Geestelijk Erf 1 (1927): 20.

CHAPTER FOUR And because of this likeness and because it intends and loves (mint) God singly above all gifts, it is not satisfied with the likeness or with the created splendor, for it has a fundamental inclination, both naturally and supernaturally, toward the fathomless being from which it has flowed forth. And the unity of the divine being eternally draws all likeness into its unity. And therefore the spirit submerges itself in bliss and flows into God as into its eternal resting place, for the grace of God is related to God in the same way as the ray is related to the sun, and is the means and way which leads there. And therefore it shines singly in us and makes us deiform, that is, like God. And this likeness submerges itself at all times and dies in God and becomes one with God and remains one, for karitate makes us become one with God and remain and dwell in oneness. Nevertheless we eternally retain a likeness to God in the light of grace or of glory, where we possess ourselves actively in karitate and in virtues, and we retain unity 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 karitate must eternally work in the likeness, and unity with God is to rest forevermore in blissful minne. And this is what it means to practice minne. For in one and the same moment and period of time minne works and rests in its gheminde, and the one is strengthened by the other, for the higher the minne, the more the rest, and the more the rest, the more interior the minne. For the one lives in the other, and whoever does not love (mint) does not rest, and whoever does not rest does not love (mint). Nevertheless

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Ende want hi ghelijc es ende hi Gode eenvoldelijcke meynt ende mint boven alle gaven, soe en laet hi hem niet ghenoeghen in ghelijcheit noch in ghescapenre claerheit; want hi hevet een grontneyghen natuerlijcke ende overnatuerlijcke in een afgrondich Wesen daer hi ute-ghevloten is. Ende die eenicheit des godlijcs Wesens hevet een eewich trecken alle ghelijcheit in haere eenicheit. Ende hier-omme ontsincket de gheest hem selven ghebrukelijcke, ende vervlietet in Gode alse in sine eewighe raste. Want de gracie Gods houdet hare te Gode alse de schijn ter zonnen, ende si es middel ende wech die ons toe-leydet; ende hier-omme schijnt si eenvoldelijcke in ons, ende maket ons godvaer, dat es Gode ghelijc. Ende ghelijc ontsinct hem selven alle uren, ende stervet in Gode, ende wert met Gode één, ende blivet één; want karitate doet ons werden met Gode één, ende bliven ende wonen in één. Nochtan behouden wij eewelijcke ghelijcheit in lichte der gracien ochte der glorien, daer wij ons selven werkelijc in karitaten ende in duechden besitten. Ende wij behouden eenheit met Gode boven onse werken in bloetheit ons gheests in godlijcken lichte, daer wij Gode boven alle duechde in rasten besitten. Want karitate inder ghelijcheit moet eewelijcke werken, ende eenheit met Gode in ghebrukelijcker minnen sal emmermeer rasten. Ende dit es minnen pleghen. Want in éénen nu ende in éénen tide werket minne ende rastet in haren gheminden. Ende dat een werdet vanden anderen ghesterket. Want soe hogher minnen, soe meerre raste; ende soe meerre raste, soe innigher minne. Want dat een levet in dat ander, ende die niet en mint hi en rast niet, ende die niet en rast hi en mint niet. Nochtan dunct

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it sometimes seems to a good person that he neither loves (mint) nor rests in God, and this thought itself comes from minne, for the fact that he desires to love (minnen) more than he can makes it seem that he falls short. And in this activity he savors minne and rest, for no one can understand how one loves (mint) in works and rests in bliss than the person who is self-abandoned, empty and enlightened. Nevertheless each minnere is both one with God in rest and like God in the works of minne, for God, in his high nature of which we bear a likeness, maintains himself blissfully in eternal rest according to the essential unity and actively in eternal activity according to the Trinity, and each is the perfection of the other, for rest lies in unity and activity in Trinity. And thus both remain for eternity. And for this reason, if a person is to savor God, he must love (minnen); and if he wills to love (minnen), then he can savor. But if he lets himself be satisfied with other things, then he cannot savor what God is. Therefore we must possess ourselves singly in virtues and in likeness, and must possess God above ourselves by means of minne in rest and in unity. (Br., 2: 216, 2-217, 21)

selcken goeden mensche dat hi niet en mint noch en rast in Gode, ende dat selve duncken comt van minnen: om-dat hi meer beghert te minnen dan hi vermach, soe dunct hem dat hi ontblivet. Ende in desen werke smaect hem minne ende raste, want niement en mach verstaen hoemen werkelijcke mint ende ghebrukelijcke rast dan die ghelatene ledighe verclaerde mensche. Nochtan es ieghewelc minnere één met Gode ende in rasten, ende Gode ghelijc inder minnen werken; want God in sire hogher natueren daer wij een ghelijc af draghen, die houdet Hem ghebrukelijc in eewigher rasten na der weselijcker eenheit, ende werkelijc in eewighen werkene nader Driheit, ende ieghelijc es des anders volcomenheit, want raste leghet in eenheit, ende werken in Driheit. Ende aldus blivet beyde inder eewicheit. Ende hier-omme, sal de mensche Gods ghesmaken, soe moet hi minnen; ende wilt hi minnen, soe mach hi smaken. Maer laet hi hem met anderen dinghen ghenoeghen, soe en mach hi niet ghesmaken wat God es. Ende hier-omme moeten wij ons selven besitten eenvoldich in doechden ende in ghelijcheiden, ende Gode boven ons selven overmids minne in rasten ende in eenheiden.

In the first half of this important passage it appears that it is karitate and not minne which is the principle of virtuous activity, and that minne is restricted to the other pole, that of resting in God. Ruusbroec writes, for example, that “we possess ourselves actively in karitate and in virtues,” and again that “karitate must eternally work in the likeness, and unity with God is to rest forevermore in blissful minne.” But if there were this kind of quite sharp distinction between karitate and minne, then in all consistency Ruusbroec would have to say at the beginning of the following paragraph that in one and the same period of time karitate works and minne rests in

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its gheminde, whereas in fact what he writes is that “in one and the same moment and period of time minne works and rests in its gheminde.” Or again, at the beginning of the final paragraph of this passage, Ruusbroec would have to write that each minnere is “one with” God in rest and “like” God in the works of karitate. He does, in fact, write in a later passage that “this gift of understanding reveals to us the unity which we have and possess in God by means of blissful minne that takes us out of ourselves, and [also reveals] the likeness to God which we have in ourselves by means of karitate and virtue,”56 but in the passage cited above he says that it is “in the works of minne” that each minnere is like God. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this usage is that Ruusbroec attributes the principle of virtuous activity sometimes to karitate, sometimes to minne; on this level the two terms can be used interchangeably. On the other level of the dialectic, however, the level of blissful rest, this interchangeable usage does not occur. Although Ruusbroec does write that karitate leads to the unity in which the minnere finds this rest, the rest itself is said to be “in minne” or, more specifically, “in blissful minne,” and never “in karitate.” One of the many examples of this usage occurs in the final sentence of the passage cited above, where Ruusbroec writes that “we must possess ourselves singly in virtues and in likeness, and must possess God above ourselves by means of minne, in rest and in unity.” The further conclusion to be drawn from this – and a conclusion that is in accord with Ruusbroec’s much earlier statement in book one of the treatise that karitate is a form of minne, namely, “created minne” – is that minne is a far broader reality than karitate, which itself is but one form or aspect of minne, namely, minne insofar as it is active, “outgoing,” manifesting our love for God and for our neighbor through all forms of virtuous behavior. Beyond this there is the more passive, “in-flowing,” restful aspect of love, whose main goal is blissful union with God, and for this reality Ruusbroec reserves the term minne, either by itself or qualified by the adjective “blissful” (ghebrukelijc). What is in addition clearly taught in this long passage is that both the active and the passive aspects of minne are indispensable, that they are 56  Br., 2: 218, 23-27: “Dese gave der verstendicheit toent ons die eenicheit die wij in Gode hebben ende besitten ovemids ghebrukelijcke ontsonckene minne, ende die ghelijcheit Gods die wij in ons selven hebben overmids karitate ende doechde.”

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indeed intrinsically related to each other and together reflect a dual reality in God, who “maintains himself blissfully in eternal rest according to the essential unity, and actively in eternal activity according to the Trinity, and each is the perfection of the other.” As Paul Mommaers of the Ruusbroecgenootschap writes, “When the Flemish mystics speak of God, they emphatically affirm … that God is, at one and the same time, repose and activity, essence and persons. He is at all times both of these two aspects … . Repose is not only the ‘perfection’ of activity; activity is just as much the ‘perfection’ of repose.”57 Perhaps the clearest and most concise statement by Ruusbroec in the Brulocht concerning this dual aspect of minne and the way it mirrors the dual reality of activity and repose in God of which Mommaers here writes is to be found in the concluding part of the section on the gift of understanding. In this section Ruusbroec uses the term “communal minne” (ghemeyne minne) in referring to its active aspect and the term “blissful minne” (ghebrukelijcke minne) in referring to the aspect of rest or repose. Even though the treatise does not conclude at this point, the final sentence of the passage to be cited below is explicitly climactic and may in a sense be taken to be Ruusbroec’s last and most laudatory word on the place of minne in the mystical life: According to the degree in which the Na diere maten dat de locht verclaert air is irradiated by the brightness of the wert van claerheit der sonnen, daer-na sun, correspondingly the heat increases and wert die hitte groet ende ghemeyne in becomes universal in fruitfulness. And if vructbaerheiden. Eest dat onse redene 57  Paul Mommaers, “Bulletin d’histoire de la spiritualité: L’école néerlandaise,” Revue d’histoire de la spiritualité 49 (1973): 474. The same point has been made by Paul Henry in the following words: “[Another] fundamental characteristic of Ruusbroec’s mysticism … is to affirm emphatically the necessary concomitance of action and of contemplation, of fruitive repose and of activity. Again, this is no more than a corollary of his Trinitarian doctrine …: God is and he acts, he is essence and persons, flux and reflux, immanent life and creative life. Likewise the soul ‘goes forth’ and ‘returns,’ keeps itself at one and the same time both in repose in its essence, submerged in the divine essence, and in the activity of knowing and of loving in union with God and in the practice of the virtues. The deeper it is submerged in a motionless rest, the more powerful is its activity.” See “La mystique trinitaire du bienheureux Jean Ruusbroec, II,” Recherches de science religieuse 41 (1953): 62.

CHAPTER FOUR our reason and our understanding are thus enlightened so as to know distinctly the divine truth, then the will, that is, the minnende power, is made hot, flowing forth in riches, in fidelity, and in minne to all in common, for this gift establishes in us a wide-reaching, communal minne by means of the knowledge of the truth which we receive from its splendor. For the simplest persons are those most firmly fixed in peace within themselves, and are the most deeply submerged in God, the most enlightened in understanding, the most diversified in good works, and the most universal in the minne flowing out from themselves. And they encounter the fewest obstacles, for they are most like God … … We shall always remain with God in unity, and flow forth with God and with all the saints eternally in communal minne, and constantly return with thanksgiving and praise, and in blissful minne submerge ourselves in essential rest. This is the richest life that I know, and herewith we possess the gift of understanding. (Br., 2: 218, 33-219, 13 & 219, 24-30)

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ende onse verstaen aldus verlicht wert te bekinnen met ondersceede godlijcke waerheit, soe wert die will, dat es die minnende cracht, verhit in rijcken uutvloeyene, in trouwen ende in minnen inder ghemeynheit; want dese gave sticht in ons ene wide ghemeyne minne overmids kinnisse der waerheit dat wij vercrighen ute hare claerheit. Want die eenvuldichste dat sijn die ghesaetste ende alre-best in vreden in hen selven, ende si sijn alre-claerst in verstane ende alder-menichfuldichst in goeden werken, ende alreghemeynst in uutvloeyender minnen. Ende si werden alreminst ghehindert, want si sijn Gode ghelijcst … . … Altoes selen wij met Gode in eenicheiden bliven, ende met Gode ende met allen heilighen eewelijc uut-vloeyen in ghemeynre minnen, ende altoes weder inkeeren met danckbaerheiden ende met love, ende in ghebrukelijcker minnen ons selven ontsincken in weselijcker rasten. Dit es dat rijcste leven dat ic weet, ende hier-mede besitten wij die gave der verstendicheit.

The gift of wisdom

Following this quite lengthy treatment of the gift of understanding Ruusbroec discusses much more briefly the gift of wisdom, the bestowal of which he equates with the divine touch (gherinen) already described in the section on the third coming of the bridegroom in “the interior life.” Just as in that earlier section, here too there is a description of the “storm of minne” and of the human spirit’s “eternal hunger” for God. Ruusbroec does not here add anything substantially new to his earlier discussion of this storm, so the details of this section may be passed over and consideration next be given to the other kind of meeting or union with the bridegroom in “the interior life,” namely, the union without intermediary.

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The Union without Intermediary Ruusbroec’s introductory remarks on this union

Ruusbroec introduces the section on the union without intermediary by writing that the same divine light which is the source of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and of all virtues also penetrates our spirit “in a way devoid of modes” (met onwisen) and “makes us lose ourselves and flow forth into the wild darkness of the Godhead. And thus united – one with the Spirit of God, without intermediary – we can meet God through God and can possess with him and in him our eternal blessedness in an enduring way. This most interior life is practiced in three manners.”58 The first manner, in which minne is “felt”

Ruusbroec proceeds to describe each of these three manners, of which the first is one in which blissful rest predominates to the exclusion of virtuous activity: Sometimes the interior person moves within in a unified way and according to a blissful inclination, above all activity and all virtues, with a unified beholding in blissful minne. And here he meets God without intermediary … . And in the blissful inclination of his spirit he overcomes God and becomes one spirit with him. And in this union in the Spirit of God he enters into a blissful savoring and possesses the divine being. And he is filled, according to the immersion of himself in his essential being, with the fathomless delights and riches of God. 58

Bi-wilen keert hem die innighe mensce in, eenvoldelijke, na der ghebrukelijcker gheneychtheit, boven alle werclijcheit ende boven alle doechde, met eenen eenvuldighen insiene in ghebrukelijcker minnen. Ende hier ontmoet hi Gode sonder middel … . Ende in der ghebrukelijcker neyghinghen sijns gheests verwint hi Gode ende wert één gheest met Hem. Ende in deser vereenecheit inden gheeste Gods comt hi in eenen ghebrukelijcken smaec, ende besit dat godlijcke Wesen. Ende hi wert vervult, na der ontsonckenheit sijns selves in sinen weselijcken sine, met der afgrondigher

 Br., 2: 223, 17-22: “doet ons selven verliesen ende ontvlieten m die wilde duysternisse der Godheit. Ende alsoe vereenicht, zonder middel een metten gheeste Gods, soe moghen wij Gode met Gode ontmoeten ende met Hem ende in Hem blijflijcke besitten onse eewighe zalicheit. Dit innichste leven wort gheufent in drien manieren.”

CHAPTER FOUR And from this richness there flows into the unity of the higher powers an embrace and a fullness of felt minne. And from this fullness of felt minne there flows into the heart and into the bodily powers a felt, penetrating savor. And by means of this flow the person becomes unable to move from within and loses power over himself and over all his activity, and he neither knows nor feels in the inmost part of his ground, in soul and in body, anything except a special brightness with a felt sense of well-being and a pervasive savor. (Br., 2: 223, 26-30 & 224, 8-24)

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welden ende rijcheit Gods. Ende ute deser rijcheit vloeyt in die eenicheit der overster crachte een omvanc ende eene volheit van ghevoelijcker minnen. Ende ute deser volheit ghevoelijcker minnen vloeit in dat herte ende in die lijflijcke crachte een ghevoelijc doergaende smaec. Ende overmids dese vloede wert de mensce ombeweechlijc van binnen, ende sijns selfs onmachtich ende al sijns werkens, ende hi en weet niet noch en ghevoelt niet anders in dat innichste sijns gronts, in ziele ende in lijf, dan eene sonderlinghe claerheit met ghevoelijcker welheit ende met doergaenden smake.

This meeting is one in which the element of union with God is experienced in so overpowering a way that the passive aspect predominates: the person “becomes unable to move from within and loses power over himself and over all his activity”; minne is here not practiced, but felt (ghevoelijcke minne), and felt in a way that is exceedingly delightful. The second manner, in which minne is “active”

From all that has been said already about Ruusbroec’s opposition to the quietistic currents of his day, it is not surprising that he should go on to speak of this first kind of meeting without intermediary as incomplete in itself and not as excellent as one in which the aspect of virtuous activity is more prominent. Such is the second meeting, which, somewhat surprisingly, he says is one in which a person “meets God through an intermediary. This intermediary is the gift of savoring wisdom, which is the ground and source of all virtue and which drives and moves every good person to virtues according to the measure of his minne, …”59 In this second meeting minne is “active” (werkelijcke minne), and the 59  Br., 2: 225, 7-11: “ontmoet hi God met middele. Dit middel dat es de gave der smakender wijsheit die den gront ende den oerspronc es alre doechde, ende elcken goeden mensche in doechden stoket ende beweghet na mate sire minnen.”

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reason for its superiority to the quite passive, “felt minne” of the first meeting is the following: This [second] way is more beneficial and more excellent than the first, for it is the cause of the first. For no one can enter into rest above activity unless he has previously loved (ghemint) in desire and activity. And therefore the grace of God and our active minne must precede and follow, that is, must be practiced both before and after, for without the working of minne we can neither merit anything nor attain God, nor retain what we have attained by means of the activity of minne. And for this reason no one will be idle who has power over himself and can practice minne. (Br., 2: 225, 30-226, 6)

Dese wise es ons orborlijckere ende eerlijckere dan die eerste, want si es sake der eerster. Want niemen en mach comen in rasten boven werc, hi en hebbe vore begherlijcke ende werkelijcke ghemint. Ende hier-omme moet de gracie Gods ende onse werkelijcke minne voregaen ende na-comen, dat es dat si gheoefent moet sijn vore ende na. Want sonder minne-werken en moghen wij niet verdienen noch Gode vercrighen, noch dat selve behouden dat wij overmids minne-werken vercreghen hebben. Ende hier-omme en sal niemen ledich sijn die sijns selfs gheweldich es ende minne pleghen mach.

The basic teaching of this passage, about the continuing need for virtuous activity, for werkelijcke minne, at all levels of the mystical life, is clear enough. As regards Ruusbroec’s placing the “intermediary” of the gift of wisdom within a section of the treatise in which he had said he would treat the “union without intermediary,’“ the correct explanation is not inconsistency on his part, but rather the simultaneity of dialectical poles which has already been noted several times in this study. As Paul Henry has perceptively observed, “The reader familiar with other mystics, such as St. Teresa of Avila, for whom the spiritual ‘marriage’ comes after the ‘full union’ and the latter comes after the state of ‘quiet,’ will derive [from Ruusbroec] an impression of confusion and of disorder. But in fact the concomitance of ‘intermediary’ mystical states at even the highest level is only a consistent corollary of his doctrine of the complementarity of divine moments [in the Trinity],” namely, essence and persons, rest and activity, flux and reflux.60

60

 Paul Henry, “La mystique trinitaire du bienheureux Jean Ruusbroec, II,” p. 62.

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The third manner, in which minne is both active and at rest

For this reason, it is to be expected that the third and most excellent meeting of the bridegroom in “the interior life” will be one in which the aspects of blissful repose and virtuous activity are present at one and the same time, which is exactly what Ruusbroec teaches. He calls this third meeting “an interior life according to righteousness” (een inwindich leven nader gherechticheit), an expression in which the term “righteousness” has the special connotation of a concomitance of rest and activity. Ruusbroec’s description of this third meeting is as follows: From these two ways [i.e., the first two meetings “without intermediary”] comes the third, which is an interior life according to righteousness. Now understand, God comes to us unceasingly both with and without intermediary, and calls us to enjoyment and to activity, and demands that the one be unhindered by the other, but rather constantly strengthened by it. And therefore the interior person possesses his life in two ways, namely, in rest and in activity. And he is entirely and undividedly in each, for he is entirely in God when he rests in bliss, and he is entirely in himself when he loves (mint) actively. And the renewing of both of these – rest and activity – is required of and urged upon him by God at all times. And the righteousness of the spirit wishes at all times to pay what is required of it by God, and therefore at each glance of God the spirit moves within, in activity and in bliss, and thus it is renewed in all virtues and more deeply immersed in a blissful rest, for God gives himself and his gifts every time he gives, and the spirit gives itself and all its works each time it moves within. For by means of the onefold illumination of God and the blissful inclination and immersion of minne

Uute desen twee wisen comt die derde wise, dat es een inwindich leven nader gherechticheit. Nu verstaet, God comt zonder onderlaet in ons met middele ende sonder middel, ende eyschet ons ghebruken ende werken, ende dat dat een vanden anderen onghehindert blive, maer altoes ghesterket werde. Ende hier-omme besit die innighe mensce sijn leven in desen twee wisen, dat es in rastene ende in werkene. Ende in elcken es hi al ende onghedeilt, want hi es al in Gode daer hi ghebrukelijcke rast, ende hi es al in hem selven daer hi werckelijcke mint. Ende hem wert alle uren van Gode ghemaent ende gheeyschet beide, raste ende werc, te vernuwene. Ende gherechticheyt des gheests wilt alle uren betalen dat hare van Gode gheeyschet wert. Ende hier-omme, in elcken inblicke Gods keert hem de geest in, werkelijcke ende ghebrukelijcke; ende alsoe wert hi vernuwet in allen duechden, ende dieper ontsonken in ghebrukelijcker rasten. Want God ghevet in eere ghichten Hem selven ende sine gaven, ende de gheest ghevet in elcken inkeere hem selven ende alle sine werke. Want overmids dat eenvoldige inlichten Gods, ende ghebrukelijcke neyghinghe ende ontvlotenheit van minnen, soe es de gheest

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the spirit is united with God and is ceaselessly led over to rest. And by means of the gifts of understanding and savoring wisdom it is actively touched and is enlightened and set aflame in minne at all times, and in the spirit everything that one could desire is revealed and held before him. He hungers and thirsts, for he sees the food of angels and the heavenly drink; he works very much in minne, for he sees his rest; he is a pilgrim and sees his fatherland; he struggles in minne for victory, for he sees his crown. Consolation, peace, joy, and beauty and riches and all that can make one happy are revealed to the enlightened reason in God without limit in spiritual likenesses, and by means of this revelation and God’s touch minne remains active, for this righteous person has established a true life in the spirit, both in rest and in activity, which shall last forever; but after this life it will exist in a higher state. Thus is a person made righteous and goes to God with interior minne in eternal activity and enters into God with blissful inclination in eternal rest and remains in God and nevertheless goes out to all creatures in communal minne in virtues and works of righteousness. And this is the highest level of the interior life. All persons who do not possess rest and activity in one and the same exercise have not received this righteousness. (Br., 2: 226, 14-227, 27)

gheenicht met Gode, ende wert zonder onderlaet overghevoert in rasten. Ende overmids die gaven der verstendicheit ende der smakender wijsheit, soe wert hi werkelijcke gherenen, ende hi wert verclaert ende ontfunct alle uren in minnen. Ende hem wert vertoent inden gheeste ende voreghehouden al dies men begheren mach. Hi es hongherich ende dorstich, want hi siet der inghelen spise ende hemelsche dranc; hi arbeyt seer in minnen, want hi siet sine raste; hi es pelgrim ende hi siet sijn lantscap; hi stridet in minnen om victorie, want hi siet sine crone. Troost, vrede, vroude, ende schoonheit ende rijcheit ende al dat verbliden mach, dat wert vertoent der verlichter redenen in Gode sonder mate in gheestelijcken ghelijcken, ende overmids dit vertonen ende Gods gherinen soe blivet die minne werclijc. Want dese gherechte mensce hevet ghesticht een ghewarich leven inden gheeste in rasten ende in werkene dat eewelijcke bliven sal; maer het sal verwandelen na desen leven in eenen hogheren state. Aldus es de mensche gherecht ende gheet te Gode met innegher minnen in eewighen werkene ende hi gheet in Gode met ghebrukelijcker neyghinghen in eewigher rasten, ende hi blivet in Gode ende gheet nochtans ute tot allen creatueren in ghemeynre minnen in doechden ende in gherechticheiden. Ende dit es dat hoochste van innighen levene. Alle die menschen die rasten ende werken in eere oefeninghen niet en besitten, si en hebben niet vercreghen dese gherechticheit.

In this long passage, the term minne is used seven times and the corresponding verb once, and in almost every case it is explicitly in terms of some form of outgoing activity. Ruusbroec writes that in this third meeting one “loves (mint) actively,” that the righteous person “works very much in

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minne,” “struggles in minne for victory,” “goes to God with interior minne in eternal activity,” and “goes out to all creatures in communal minne,” while by God’s touch minne itself “remains active.” But this activity is always with a view to coming to rest in God and remaining in such repose even while at work: one works in minne because “he sees his rest,” one struggles in minne for victory because “he sees his crown,” one goes to God in minne so as to enter “into God with blissful inclination in eternal rest,” and by means of “the blissful inclination and immersion of minne the spirit is united with God and is ceaselessly led over to rest.” Clearly there is in the Brulocht no possibility of placing minne exclusively at either pole of the dialectic, neither at that of activity nor that of rest, neither at the pole of going out to creatures in good works nor that of returning to God and finding in him blissful repose. Minne extends across the entire span of this dialectic. In this connection it should be noted that in his own life Ruusbroec provided a model for this harmonious interplay between contemplative rest and virtuous activity, a harmony which is so widely sought after in our own day. Pomerius’s life of Ruusbroec, which has already been mentioned in the Introduction to this study, depicts the mystic as someone who not only loved the solitude of the forest at Groenendaal but as one who was also very much in demand as a spiritual advisor by persons both within and without his own religious community. Many persons, both young and old, male and female, magistrates and clerics, would come to speak with him, often from as far away as Basel or other places along the Rhine, while the spiritual conferences and colloquies which Ruusbroec held for the brothers of his own community who came to him with their spiritual needs sometimes lasted far into the night, even until time for matins.61 Pomerius also relates that Ruusbroec took an active and exemplary role in the various kinds of manual labor needing to be done in and around the priory, regularly choosing for himself the least attractive of such duties.62 This early biographer concludes that in all these ways Ruusbroec truly united the activity of Martha and the contemplative leisure of Mary and adds that the mystic himself was quite aware of this 61  Pomerius, De origine monasterii Viridisvallis, in Analecta Bollandiana 4 (1885): 296 & 299-300. 62  Ibid., pp. 297-98.

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great grace, for he was accustomed to tell his confreres that it was no more difficult for him to raise his mind to God in contemplation than to raise his hand to his head.63 Nevertheless, for Ruusbroec the exemplar par excellence of this kind of life was, of course, Jesus Christ, whom the mystic depicts in the final lines of the second book of his treatise as the person who led “the interior life” in the most perfect way possible, for he lived actively “minnende and desiring, thanking and praising his heavenly Father,” while simultaneously he rested, “united and blessed in the divine being.”64 Ruusbroec 63

 Ibid., p. 298. On this theme of the harmony between action and contemplation in the doctrine of the greatest mystics of Western Christianity, see Cuthbert Butler, Western Mysticism (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1923), esp. part two, “The Contemplative and Active Lives,” pp. 193-293. 64  Br., 2: 238, 2-3: “minnende ende begherende, danckende ende lovende sinen hemelschen Vader,” and 238, 4-5: “vereenicht ende salich in dat godlijcke Wesen.” It should also be noted that in these same concluding pages of book two of the Brulocht Ruusbroec contrasts the karitate and minne of Christ and his true followers with the “natural minne” (natuerlijcke minne) of self-seeking persons. The contrast between the two kinds of minne, based upon the difference in their intentionalities, is seen most clearly in the following passage: These [self-seeking] persons live altogether contrary to karitate and minlijc recollection, where one offers himself with all that he can accomplish in the homage and in the minne of God. Nothing can give such a person rest and satisfaction except an incomprehensible good, which is God alone. For karitate is a minne-bond which transforms us and in which we deny ourselves and are united with God and God with us. But natural minne turns back upon itself and upon its enjoyment and constantly remains alone. Nevertheless, natural minne is as similar to karitate in external works as are two hairs on the same head, but their intentionalities are different, for the good person seeks and intends and desires the honor of God constantly and with an uplifted heart, but in natural minne a person constantly intends himself and his own profit. (Br., 2: 231, 23-232, 3) Dese menschen leven al contrarie der karitaten ende den minlijcken inkeere, daer de mensche hem selven offert met al dien dat hi gheleisten mach inder eeren ende inder minnen Gods, ende dien niet custen en mach noch ghenoegen dan een ombegripelijc goet, dat es God alleene. Want de karitate es een minne-bant die ons overvoert, ende daer wij ons selves in verloechenen ende met Gode vereenicht werden ende God met ons. Maer natuerlijcke minne boghet op haer selven ende op hare gherief, ende blivet altoes alleene. Nochtans es natuerlijcke minne alsoe ghelijc der karitaten inden werken van

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then concludes the entire second book by writing that the same kind of life can be ours as well and by praying that this might indeed be the case: “And so we shall become eternally indwelling and constantly flowing forth and ceaselessly coming back within. And with this we shall possess a truly interior life in all perfection. May God aid us that this might come about. Amen.”65

buyten alse twee hare op eenen hoofde. Maer die meyninghe sijn onghelijc. Want die goede mensce soeket ende meynt ende begheert met opghedragender herten altoes die eere Gods. Maer in natuerlijcker minnen meint die mensche altoes hen selven ende sijn ghewin. 65  Br., 2: 238, 30-34: “Ende alsoe werde wij eewelijcke inblivende ende altoes uutvloeiende ende sonder onderlaet weder inkeerende. Ende hier-met besitten wij een ghewarich innich leven in alre volcomenheit. Dat ons dit ghescie, dies helpe ons God. Amen.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Minne In “the Contemplative Life” Methodological Remarks on the Distinction between “the Interior Life” and “the Contemplative Life” At the beginning of the previous chapter of this study, it was relatively easy to explain the distinction which Ruusbroec draws between “the active life” and “the interior life.” In the latter, a person by no means abandons the works characteristic of the former life, but performs a multiplicity of virtuous works without becoming distractedly absorbed in their multiplicity. However difficult it may be to avoid such distraction in practice, the distinction is in theory quite clear and finds its Scriptural warrant in Jesus’ words: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and fretful about many things; one thing only is necessary” (Luke 10:41). (In fact, Ruusbroec refers to this passage in his treatise Vanden blinckenden steen, generally thought to have been composed directly after the Brulocht, his point being that Martha is representative of someone in “the active life” and her sister Mary of someone in “the interior life.”1) Once this distinction was clarified at the beginning of the previous chapter, it was possible to turn at once to a consideration of minne in “the interior life,” without extensive reference to other aspects of Ruusbroec’s doctrine concerning that life. In the present chapter, however, a rather different methodology will have to be followed, for the distinction that Ruusbroec makes between “the interior life” and “the contemplative life” is not at all so easy to clarify. To be sure, it has already been seen that at one point in book 1  Jan van Ruusbroec, Werken, vol. 3: Vanden blinckenden steen [plus six other of his treatises], ed. L. Reypens, S.J. & M. Schurmans, S.J., 2nd ed., rev. (Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 1947), pp. 17-18.

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two of the Brulocht Ruusbroec makes explicit reference to the difference between the two lives, for at the conclusion of his consideration of the divine touch he writes that “this is all in a creaturely manner and beneath God. And this is the most interior exercise which one can practice in the created light, in heaven and on earth; and above this there is nothing except a contemplative life in the divine light and according to God’s manner.”2 Here the question arises, How helpful is such a distinction? Clearly Ruusbroec is teaching that in “the contemplative life” (literally, “the God-seeing life” [het godscouwende leven]) a person is caught up into the very life of God, beholding God “in the divine light” and after the very manner of God (na der wise Gods). The difficulty of expressing any such experience in human language is obvious. The twentieth-century theologian Henri Rondet, S.J., best known for his writings on grace, once made the following observation concerning our participation in the mystery of the Trinitarian processions: This is a great mystery, about which it is as difficult to speak as about the life of the Trinity itself. The reason for this is simple. To be able to speak properly of this, it would be necessary to be raised to God’s own way of seeing, to enter into his intimate life and from there to descend once more toward what has been created. But every good theodicy teaches us that if it is easy to proceed from creatures to God, to ascend from a consideration of existence, of goodness, of truth, of beauty as these are in creatures to him who is Being, the Good, the True, the Beautiful, it is more difficult to descend again from God toward the beings whom he has admitted to a certain participation in his being and his attributes.3

The difficulty of attempting to express the ineffable within the limitations of human language is one that has confronted mystics of all times and places and has often elicited from them expressions about the inadequacy of their words. Ruusbroec himself was certainly aware of this 2  Br., 2: 201, 21-26: “dit es al creatuerelijcker-wijs ende beneden Gode. Ende dit es de innichste oefeninghe diemen pleghen mach in ghescapenen lichte, in hemel ende in eerde; ende boven dit en es niet dan een godscouwende leven in godlijcken lichte ende na der wise Gods.” 3  Henri Rondet, S.J., “La divinisation du chrétien,” Nouvelle revue théologique 71 (1949): 574.

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problem, for he included the following warning in the introductory section of this third book of his treatise: Few persons attain to this divine contemplation because of their own incapacity and because of the hiddenness of the light in which one sees. And therefore no one will thoroughly understand this meaning by way of his own learning or his own subtle reflection. For all words and all that one can learn and understand in a creaturely way is foreign to and far beneath the truth which I mean. But the person who is united with God and enlightened in this truth can understand the truth through itself. For to grasp and understand God above all likeness just as he is in himself is to be God with God, without intermediary or any difference which could constitute an obstacle or intermediary. And therefore I beseech everyone who does not understand this and does not feel it in the blissful unity of his spirit not to take offense at it, but allow it to be what it is. For that of which I wish to speak is true, and Christ the eternal truth has said it in his teachings in many a place, provided only that we prove able properly to discover it and bring it forth. (Br., 3: 240, 4-23)

Tote desen godlijcken scouwen connen lettel menscen comen overmids die onheblijcheit haers selfs ende die verborghenheit des lichts daermen in scout. Ende hier-omme en sal desen sen niemen eyghenlijcke te gronde verstaen overmids eenighe leringhe oft subtijl ghemerc sijns selfs. Want alle waerde, ende al datmen creatuerlijcker-wijs leren ende verstaen mach, dat es vremde, ende verre beneden der waerheit die ic meyne. Maer die vereenicht es met Gode ende verclaert in deser waerheit, hi mach die waerheit met haer selven verstaen. Want God begripen ende verstaen boven alle ghelijckenissen alsoe alse Hi es in Hem selven, dat es God sijn met Gode sonder middel oft eenighe anderheit die hinder ochte middel maken mach. Ende hier-omme beghere ic van yeghewelcken mensce die des niet en versteet noch en ghevoelt in die ghebrukelijcke eenicheit sijns gheests, dat hijs onghearghet blive, ende laet sijn dat es. Want dat ic spreken wille dat es waer, ende Cristus die eewighe waerheit hevet selve ghesproken in sire leeren op menighe stadt, waert alsoe dat wijt wel openbaren ende voertbringhen consten.

Regardless of what an individual reader might eventually conclude about the truth of Ruusbroec’s claim that a person in “the contemplative life” is so caught up into the divine life as “to be God with God, without intermediary,” it is evident that simply to understand reasonably well what Ruusbroec means by such expressions calls for a careful study of the text. For this reason, if the present chapter is to offer an adequate understanding of minne in “the contemplative life,” such that not only the term minne but also the term “the contemplative life” is understood as well as possible, it will be necessary to attend to the entire third book of the Brulocht and not merely to those sections which explicitly deal with minne. Only at the end

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of the chapter will a reasonably adequate grasp of “the contemplative life,” and of minne within it, be possible. This task is made easier by the relative brevity of this third book, which is only eleven pages long in the Ruusbroecgenootschap’s edition, less than one-eighth the length of book two.4 4

 It should here be mentioned that the person who has written at greatest length on the relationship between the second and third books of the Brulocht was Albert Ampe, S.J., of the Ruusbroecgenootschap. He treats this question above all in De mystieke leer van Ruusbroec over den zieleopgang, Studiën en tekstuitgaven van ons geestelijk erf, vol. 13 (Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 1957), esp. pp. 211-21 & 262-85. A summary of his position can be found in his article “La théologie mystique de 1’ascension de l’âme selon le bienheureux Jean de Ruusbroec,” Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 36 (1960): 188-201 & 303-22. Page references in the rest of this footnote are to this article. Ampe divides his treatment of Ruusbroec’s doctrine into “the active,” “the interior,” and “the divine” (godlijc) lives, and distinguishes the last-named from what he calls “the contemplative life” (het godscouwende leven) “in the strict and technical sense of the term” (pp. 309 & 311). He considers the concluding part of the second book of the Brulocht, dealing with the union with God “without intermediary,” to be in fact “the first phase of the ‘divine life,’” (p. 304), such that the Brulocht’s third book, “which, as it is conceived redactionally, describes the ‘divine life’” (Ibid.), in fact treats only part of it, namely, “the contemplative life (in the strict and technical sense of the term)” (a sense which Ampe sees as consisting above all in the enlightenment of the understanding by the Son, leading to the transforming of the will by the Holy Spirit). In this respect, Ampe considers the structure of Ruusbroec’s earlier work, Het rijcke der ghelieven, to be clearer: it is, in Ampe’s words, “constructed according to a strict parallelism,” and so is a treatise “clearly ordered with much finesse and harmony” (p. 304), whereas the redactional schema of the Brulocht proved not fully adequate to a similarly orderly presentation of Ruusbroec’s doctrine. Whether or not one might accept Ampe’s position (the complete details of which need not be given here) as satisfactory for explaining the striking similarity between some of the phrasing in books two and three of the Brulocht, it must be noted that there are also many passages in book three which, as regards “the contemplative person’s” union with God, go far beyond anything in book two and which might therefore reasonably be taken as indicating a truly distinct nature for “the contemplative life” as Ruusbroec presents this in book three of his treatise. The most striking of these unique passages are those which speak not only of a union with God, but of a kind of identity with him. (One such passage has already been given in the text of the present chapter and the others will be considered as they appear.) There are also several texts, still to be examined, where Ruusbroec speaks of a beholding of God “beyond distinction” or “without distinction,” referring to a meeting with God still more intense than the union “without intermediary” already mentioned in book two of the treatise. The light that these and similar texts shed on Ruusbroec’s understanding of “the contemplative life” will be one of the major concerns of the present chapter.

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Minne and “Contemplation” in the Introductory Section of Book Three At the very beginning of this third book Ruusbroec uses the terminology of minne several times, doing so in such a way as to recall that dual aspect of blissful rest and virtuous activity which appears so often in earlier parts of the treatise. He writes that the only person whom God might raise to “a contemplative life” is “the interior minnere of God, who possesses God in blissful rest, and himself in devout, active minne, and all his life in virtues in accordance with righteousness.”5 He goes on to note once more, as he had already done in the previous book, that the meeting with God proper to “the contemplative life” occurs “in the divine light and after the manner of God,”6 and then emphasizes for the first of several times that no one can attain to this life by his own learning or subtlety; God alone can bring one to it. Ruusbroec next speaks of the divine nature as related on the one hand to the three persons of the Trinity (the note of distinctness, already familiar from chapter one of this study) and on the other hand to the groundless being (Wesen) of the Godhead (the note of utter simplicity and ineffability, likewise considered at some length in chapter one). As will be seen in the passage itself, given below, it is at the level of the divine Wesen that Ruusbroec sees the possibility of our being not merely united with God, but in some as yet unspecified way identified with him: The hidden, divine nature is forever actively contemplating and minnende according to the mode of the persons, and constantly enjoying in the persons’ being embraced in the unity of the being. In this embrace in the essential unity of God all interior spirits are one with God in minlijc immersion and are that same one which the being is in itself according to the mode of blessedness. (Br., 3: 239, 17-24)

5

Die verborghene godlijcke natuere, die es eewich werkelijc scouwende ende minnende na wise der Persone, ende altoes ghebrukende in eenen omvanghe der Persone in eenicheit des Wesens. In desen omvanghe inder weselijcker eenicheit Gods sijn alle innighe gheeste één met Gode in minlijcker ontvlotentheit, ende dat selve één dat dat Wesen selve es in Hem selven na wise der salicheit.

 Br., 3: 239, 1-3: “Die innighe minnere Gods die God besit in ghebrukelijcker rasten, ende hem selven in toevoeghender werkelijcker minnen, ende al sijn leven in doechden met gherechticheiden.” 6  Br., 3: 239, 8-9: “in godlijcken lichte ende na die wise Gods.”

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Ruusbroec’s statement that in this minlijc immersion a person is “that same one which the [divine] being is in itself according to the mode of blessedness” is but the first of seven statements in this third book which speak in one way or another of some kind of identity with the divine. In this particular passage Ruusbroec gives no further explanation of his meaning, but that he senses the boldness of such a claim is clear from his going on to say that only the few who have attained to this “divine contemplation” will be able to understand the meaning of his words.7 For now it may simply be noted that Ruusbroec once again refers to minne both at the pole of activity and distinctness (the divine nature is “contemplating and minnende according to the mode of the persons”) and at the pole of rest and utter simplicity (where the contemplative is not only united with God “in minlijc immersion” but even in some sense is “that same one which the [divine] being is in itself.”) The more precise nature of this identification will be clarified by Ruusbroec in the body of this third book of the Brulocht, for with the admonition that not everyone will be able to understand his meaning, but only the person who has died to himself and lives in God, he concludes the introductory section of the book and turns to the first of its four main divisions, which again follow the Gospel phrase, “Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go forth to meet him.” Minne and “Contemplation” in Section One of Book Three In the previous two books of the treatise, Ruusbroec depicted Christ as the one speaking the command, “Behold!” But in book three it is the 7  This caution is found in the passage from Br., 3: 240, 4-23, already quoted in the text of the present chapter. Ruusbroec’s expressions here and elsewhere in the third book of the Brulocht are reminiscent of the writings of Gregory of Nyssa and others of the Eastern Fathers, for whom the theme of theosis (our deification through grace) was so central. Their doctrine was transmitted to the West largely through the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius. Although Ruusbroec never explicitly cites Pseudo-Dionysius, he seems clearly to have been influenced by him, either through direct familiarity with his treatises or through various intermediaries writing in the intervening centuries. On this difficult question of Ruusbroec’s sources, see Louis Cognet, Introduction aux mystiques rhéno-flamands, pp. 253-56. On the theme of deification in the Greek Fathers, see Jules Gross, La divinisation du chrétien d’apres les pères grecs (Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1938).

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Father who speaks, and what he utters is “a single, groundless Word,” and “in this Word he speaks himself and all things.”8 In other words, this speaking is “the going forth and the birth of the Son, the eternal Light, in which one knows and beholds all blessedness.”9 Just as in the earlier two books, Ruusbroec names three prerequisites for being able to “behold” in this Light: being well-ordered in the exercise of the virtues and yet interiorly detached from them; interiorly cleaving to God in intention and with minne like a glowing fire that can never again be extinguished (thereby emphasizing the ardently affective side of unitive minne); and losing oneself in a state of modelessness (in een onwise), that is, in an absence of determinateness, separateness, distinctness which is not further described at this point.10 Ruusbroec, having already said in the introductory section to this book that “the contemplative person” becomes “that same one which the [divine] being is in itself” and that this person’s understanding of God as he is in himself means “to be God with God, without intermediary,” now for the third time posits this kind of identity, but this time with a clarification which shows that this must not be understood in a pantheistic sense: In the abyss of this darkness where the minnende spirit has died to itself, there begins the revelation of God and eternal life, for in this darkness there shines forth and is born an incomprehensible Light, which is the Son of God, wherein one contemplates eternal life. And in this Light one becomes able to see. And this divine Light is given in the simple being of the spirit, where the spirit receives the brightness that God is himself above all gifts and above creaturely activity in the empty idleness of the spirit, where it, by means of blissful minne, has lost itself and

Inden afgront deser duysternissen daer de minnende gheest sijns selfs in ghestorven es, daer beghint die oppenbaringhe Gods, ende dat eewige leven. Want in dier duysternissen schijnt ende werdet gheboren een ombegripelijc Licht, dat es de Sone Gods, daermen in scouwet eewich Leven. Ende in desen Lichte wertmen siende. Ende dit godlicke Licht wert ghegheven inden eenvuldighen sine des gheests, daer de gheest die Claerheit, die God selve es, ontfeet boven alle gaven ende boven creatuerlijc werk in die ledighe idelheit des gheests daer hi

8  Br., 3: 241, 1 & 2: “een eenich grondeloes Woort”; “in desen Worde spreect hi Hem selven ende alle dinc.” 9  Br., 3: 241, 4-5: “die uutganc ende die gheboert des Soens des eewichs Lichts daermen alle salicheit in bekint ende siet.” 10  These prerequisites are described in Br., 3: 241, 8-24.

CHAPTER FIVE receives the brightness of God without intermediary. And it ceaselessly becomes the very brightness which it receives. Behold, this hidden brightness, wherein one sees all that one desires after the manner of the spirit’s emptiness – this brightness is so great that the minnende beholder neither sees nor feels in his ground, wherein he rests, anything but an incomprehensible Light. And according to the simple void which embraces all things he finds and feels himself to be that same Light with which he sees, and nothing but that. And herewith you have the first point: how one becomes able to see in the divine Light. Blessed are the eyes that see in this way, for they possess eternal life. (Br., 3: 241, 26-242, 18)

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overmids ghebrukelijcke minne hem selven in verloren hevet ende ontfeet die Claerheit Gods sonder middel. Ende hi wert die Claerheit selve sonder onderlaet die hi ontfeet. Siet, dese verborghene Claerheit daermen al in scouwet diesmen beghert na wise des gheests ledicheit, dese Claerheit es alsoe groot dat de minnende scouwere in sinen gronde, daer hi in rast, niet en siet noch en ghevoelt dan een ombegrijpelijc Licht. Ende na der eenvuldigher bloetheit die alle dinc beveet, so vint hi hem ende ghevoelt dat selve Licht daer hi met siet, ende niet anders. Ende hier-met hebdi dat eerste poent hoemen siende wert in godlijcken Lichte. Salich sijn die oghen die aldus siende sijn, want si besitten dat eewich Leven.

The first expression of identity in this passage (which concludes section one of the book) is as strong as either of the two mentioned previously, for Ruusbroec writes that the spirit, by means of blissful minne, “ceaselessly becomes the very brightness which it receives.” But the following two sentences show with all possible clarity that Ruusbroec understands this identity to be on the level of experience or feeling and thus not to be a matter of strictly ontological (and therefore pantheistic) identity. He says that the brightness is so great that the beholder, in the ground of his being, “neither sees nor feels” anything but that brightness, and thus “feels (ghevoelt) himself to be that same Light with which he sees, and nothing but that.” This is a prime example of the need to understand individual phrases of a mystic (such as the phrase “it [the spirit] ceaselessly becomes the very brightness which it receives”) within their larger context. A scholar who applied this principle precisely in regard to the question of whether Ruusbroec was a pantheist was A. Van de Walle, O.F.M., above all in his long, two-part article “Is Ruusbroec pantheist?” At one point he quotes the very text given above, and comments upon it as follows: This description contains the two elements of psychological identification: the brightness is that which and that with which the spirit sees, and it so strongly overwhelms the soul that the latter is thoroughly mastered by it,

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PART TWO so much so that it feels itself to be the brightness itself. There is in this no trace of ontological identity. The characteristic word which he [Ruusbroec] likes to use in these contexts is “to feel” [ghevoelen]: through the transformation by God the spirit “feels” itself swallowed up in a groundless blessedness, such that it can find no difference between itself and God.11

The important role of minne in this experience of felt oneness should also be noted. Ruusbroec writes that the experience is possible only for one who has “died to himself” or has “lost himself” in the emptiness of his spirit, and adds that this comes about “by means of blissful minne” (overmids ghebrukelijcke minne). Here ghebrukelijc, as usual, signifies the opposite pole from werkende: blissful minne is at rest “in the empty idleness of the spirit,” where it effortlessly “receives” (ontfeet) the divine brightness. It will be important to see to what extent this aspect of minne is emphasized in later sections of this final book of the Brulocht. Likewise significant is the close relationship between minne and “contemplation,” for the person gifted with this experience of oneness with God is called “the minnende contemplative” (de minnende scouwere). Again, it will be important to note to what extent this relationship is stressed in the following sections of book three and to determine what significance this might have for the proper understanding of what Ruusbroec means by “the contemplative life.” “Contemplation” in Section Two of Book Three Since in section one Ruusbroec considers not only the act of “beholding” but also that which is to be beheld, it is not surprising that section two, on the bridegroom’s coming, does not present some radically new object for one’s “contemplation.” Just as in section one the person “neither sees nor feels … anything but an incomprehensible Light,” so too in this second section Ruusbroec writes that “here there is nothing other than an eternal beholding and gazing at the Light with the Light and in the Light.”12 What is emphasized is the Light’s being none other than the bridegroom, whose coming is described as something both joyful and  A. Van de Walle, “Is Ruusbroec pantheist?” Ons Geestelijk Erf 12 (1938): 387.  Br., 3: 243, 2-4: “hier en es anders niet dan een eewich scouwen ende staren dat Licht metten Lichte ende inden Lichte.” 11 12

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uninterrupted. Indeed, the eyes of one’s spirit are said to be so wide open “that they will never again be closed.”13 The spirit of “the contemplative person” becomes “the very Breadth which it grasps. And thus God is grasped and seen through God, wherein all our blessedness resides.”14 Although there is no explicit mention of minne in this very short section (thirty-three lines in the Ruusbroecgenootshap’s edition), it is well to have commented briefly upon it, for its emphasis on the uninterrupted nature of this contemplative beholding prepares directly for the third section’s much fuller treatment of how we can participate in God’s eternal now. Minne and “Contemplation” in Section Three of Book Three The Pole of Restful, Minlijc Immersion in God Ruusbroec begins the third section by writing that the “going forth” proper to “the contemplative life” will consist of an entering “into an eternal contemplation and blissful enjoyment according to the manner of God.”15 The crucial role of minne in this going forth is evident from the lines which follow that introductory sentence: All the richness which is in God naturally is possessed by us minlijc in God and God in us by means of the infinite minne which is the Holy Spirit, for in this minne one savors all that one can desire. And therefore, by means of this minne we have died to ourselves and gone forth in minlijc immersion in a modeless way and in darkness. There the spirit is in the embrace of the Holy Trinity, eternally remaining in the superessential unity in rest and in bliss. (Br., 3: 244, 4-12)

13

Alle die rijcheit die in Gode natuerlijc es, die besitte wij minlijcke in Gode and God in ons overmids die onghemetene Minne die de Heilighe Gheest es. Want in dier Minnen smaectmen al dies men begheren mach. Ende hier-omme, overmids dese Minne, sijn wij ons selfs ghestorven ende uutghegaen in minlijcker ontvlotentheit in onwisen ende in demsterheiden. Daer es de gheest in eenen omvanghe der heiligher Drivuldicheit, eewelijcke inblivende in die overweselijcke eenicheit in rastene ende in ghebrukelijcheiden.

 Br., 3: 243, 15: “datse nummermeer en werden gheloken.”  Br., 3: 243, 19-21: “die Wijtheit … die hi begrijpt. Ende aldus wert God met Gode begrepen ende ghesien, daer alle onse zalicheit in gheleghet.” 15  Br., 3: 243, 30-31: “in een eewich scouwen ende ghebruken na die wise Gods.” 14

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The emphasis in these lines is clearly on restful, blissful immersion in God, a unity to which we are raised above our own being (overweselijc) by means of that primal minne which is the Holy Spirit. All five references to minne in this short passage concern this pole of blissful rest: it is through minne that we are raised to it through a dying to ourselves, in minne that one experiences the riches of God as the fulfillment of all desires, and in a minlijc way that one is immersed in the embrace of the Trinity. The Pole of Fruitful Activity from within the Godhead The doctrine of exemplarism

From all that has already been said about the dialectical nature of Ruusbroec’s thought, it is not surprising that he passes at once to the other pole, to a consideration of the fruitful activity that is within one and the same Godhead, for out of that same unity there eternally occurs the Father’s begetting of the Son and of all creatures in the Son: Here there issues forth and begins an eternal going forth and an eternal activity without beginning. For here is a beginning without beginning. For inasmuch as the almighty Father, in the ground of his fruitfulness, has perfectly comprehended himself, so has the Son, the eternal Word of the Father, gone forth as another person in the Godhead. And by means of this eternal birth all creatures have eternally gone forth, before they were created in time. Thus God has seen and known them in himself as distinct in his living ideas and different from himself, yet not different in every respect, for all that is in God is God. This eternal going forth and this eternal life which we have in God and which we are without ourselves is a cause of our created being in time. And our

Hier ontspringhet ende beghint een eewich uutgaen ende een eewich werc sonder beghin. Want hier es een beghin sonder beghin. Want na dien dat die almachtighe Vader inden gronde sire vrochtbaerheit Hem selven volcomelijc begrepen hevet, soe es de Sone dat ewighe Woort des Vaders uutghegaen een ander Persoen inder Godheit. Ende overmids die eewighe gheboert sijn alle creatueren uutgheghaen eewelijcke, eer sie ghescapen waren inder tijt. Soe heefse God aenghesien ende bekint in Hem selven, met ondersceede in levenden redenen, ende in eere anderheit sijns Selfs; doch niet een ander in alre wijs: want al dat in God es, dat es God. Dit eewighe uutgaen ende dit eewighe leven dat wij in Gode hebben ende sijn sonder onse selven, dat es eene Oersake ons ghescapens wesens inder tijt. Ende

CHAPTER FIVE created being depends on the eternal being, and it is one with it essentially. (Br., 3: 244, 20-245, 4)

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onse ghescapen wesen hanghet in dat eewighe Wesen, ende het es één met Hem na weselijcken sine.

Technically this doctrine is known as exemplarism. Indeed, several sentences later Ruusbroec applies the term Exemplare to the Son, as well as the term “image” (Beelde), writing that “in this divine image all creatures have an eternal life without themselves as in their eternal exemplar. And to this image, and to this likeness, the Holy Trinity has made us.”16 In this use of the doctrine of exemplarism, according to which we have and are a being in God prior to our creation in time (and so in this sense “without ourselves,” sonder onse selven), Ruusbroec is following a long tradition of Christian theology. The Scriptural roots of this doctrine are found in such well-known texts as Colossians 1:15-16, where Christ is spoken of as the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation, in whom, through whom, and for whom all things have been created, and the opening verses of the Fourth Gospel, in which all things are said to come into being through the Word and to be life in the Word. Prominent in the writings of St. Augustine, the doctrine was also given lengthy expression by St. Anselm, especially in his Monologion, where he writes that the Creator expresses himself in a Word that is consubstantial with himself, and that when he thus expresses himself, he simultaneously “expresses all created beings. For both before they were created, and now that they have been created, and after they are decayed or changed in any way, they are ever in him not what they are in themselves, but what this Spirit himself is.”17 So, too, St. Thomas writes that in one sense things “are in God through their own intelligible natures, which in God are the same as the divine essence. Hence things, as they exist in God in that way, are the divine essence.”18 16  Br., 3: 245, 20-24: “In desen godlijcken Beelde hebben alle creatueren een eewich Leven sonder hem selven alse in haren eewighen Exemplare. Ende toe desen eewighen Beelde, ende toe dese Ghelijckenisse, hevet ons ghemaect die heilighe Drivoldicheit.” 17  St. Anselm, Monologion, chap. 34, in Basic Writings [of St. Anselm], trans. Sidney Norton Deane (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1961), p. 98. 18  St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, la. 18, 4, ad 1, in Summa Theologiae, 60 vols., trans. Dominicans from English-speaking provinces of the Dominican Order (New York: McGraw-Hill, n.d.; London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, n.d.), 4: 127, 129.

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The exact way through which Ruusbroec became familiar with this doctrine will never be known. As R. Ricard, commenting in general on the difficulty of determining “sources” in the transmission of spiritual teaching, has written, “The more one studies spiritual writings, the more one sees that this immense literature rests on diverse traditions whose elements, sometimes very ancient, are all the more difficult to isolate and to trace as their transmission was accomplished in large measure orally.”19 In any case, Jozef Van Mierlo has shown that this doctrine was already common in the Low Countries at the end of the twelfth century, so much so that among the beguines “the doctrine of divine exemplarism already dominated [their] entire life.”20 The “contemplative” experience of one’s eternal life in God

The reason why Ruusbroec introduces the divine exemplarism only at this point in his treatise is that even though all creatures have this eternal life in God, it is only “the contemplative person” who is able to behold or experience it. Ruusbroec discusses this at some length. After writing that the bosom of the Father is the ground of our own being, he writes that out of this ground there shines forth an eternal brightness, which is the birth of the Son. In this brightness is revealed the Father and all that lives in him, so that even though the ground abides in absolute simplicity, “in darkness and without modes” (in demsterheiden ende zonder wise), it is nevertheless revealed in some way by the infinite brightness which is the Son.21 Ruusbroec next writes of the way in which “the contemplative person” becomes aware of this: All persons who are raised above their creaturehood into a contemplative life are one with this divine brightness and are the brightness itself. And they see and

Ende alle die menschen die boven hare ghescapenheit verhaven sijn in eenen scouwende levene die sijn één met deser godlijcker Claerheit, ende si sijn

 R. Ricard, in Bulletin hispanique (1956), p. 271 n., cited by Jean Orcibal, Saint Jean de la Croix et les mystiques rhéno-flamands, p. 11, n. 6. 20  Jozef Van Mierlo, “Over het ontstaan der Germaansche mystiek,” p. 33. 21  Br., 3: 245, 29-246, 14. 19

CHAPTER FIVE feel and find themselves, by means of this divine light, to be the same simple ground, according to their uncreated aspect, from which the brightness shines forth infinitely in a divine way and yet remains eternally and without mode simply within, according to the simplicity of the being. And therefore the interior, contemplative persons will go forth, according to the mode of contemplation, above reason and above distinction and above their created being, with a perpetual gazing by means of the inborn Light; in this way they will be transformed and become one with the same Light with which they see and which they see. And thus the contemplative persons attain their eternal image to which they are made and they contemplate God and all things without distinction in a simple vision in divine brightness. And this is the most excellent and the most beneficial contemplation to which one can arrive in this life, for in this contemplation the person remains most master of himself and free, and can grow in excellence of life at each minlijc movement within, above all that one can understand, for he remains free and master of himself in inferiority and in virtues, and that gazing upon the divine Light holds him above all interiority and above all virtues and above all merit, for it is the crown and the reward for which we aspire and which we now have and possess in this way, for a contemplative life is a heavenly life. (Br., 3: 246, 14-247, 9)

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die Claerheit selve. Ende si sien ende ghevoelen ende venden hem selven, overmids dit godlijcke Licht, dat si sijn die selve eenvoldighe Gront, na wise haerre onghescapenheit daer die Claerheit sonder mate ute scijnt in godlijcker wisen, ende na der simpelheit des Wesens eenvoldich binnen blivet eewelijcke sonder wise. Ende hier-omme selen die inneghe scouwende menschen uutgaen, na wise des scouwens, boven redene ende boven ondersceet; ende boven hare ghescapen wesen, met eewighen instaerne overmids dat ingheborne Licht, soe werden si ghetransformeert ende één met dien selven Lichte daer si met sien ende dat si sien. Ende alsoe hervolgen die scouwende menschen hare eewighe Beelde daer si toe ghemaect sijn, ende bescouwen Gode ende alle dinc sonder ondersceet in eenen eenvuldighen siene in godlijcker Claerheit. Ende dit es dat eedelste ende dat orborlijcste scouwen daermen toe comen mach in desen levene. Want in desen scouwene blijft de mensche alre-best sijns selfs gheweldich ende vri, ende mach toenemen in hoecheiden van levene in elcken minlijcken inkeere boven al datmen verstaen mach. Want hi blijft vri ende sijns selfs gheweldich in innicheiden ende in doechden. Ende dat staren inden godlijcken Lichte hout hem boven alle innicheit ende boven alle duechde ende boven alle verdienen, want het es die croene ende die loen daer wij na haken, ende dien wij nu hebben ende besitten in selcker wijs; want scouwende leven dat es een hemels leven.

In this passage, which appears near the end of section three of this third book of the Brulocht, there are again several references to a certain identity with the divine, either with the brightness (Claerheit) which is the Son in

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his going forth from the Father, or with our ground (Gront) in the very bosom of the Father. Other expressions by which Ruusbroec strives to capture the deep union felt by “the contemplative person” are those of transformation (ghetransformeert), of lack of any felt distinction (sonder ondersceet), and of simplicity (in eenen eenvuldighen siene). Enough has been said earlier in this chapter about the non-pantheistic way in which these expressions are to be understood. More positively, it might now be asked what is the nature of this elevation, of this being “transformed” by God in such a way as to experience deep union with the Father who created us and with the Son in whose image we have been made. Many writers in our day have been attempting to clarify this mystical phenomenon in general. With special reference to the mystics of the Low Countries, the writings of Albert Deblaere, S.J., are especially helpful. In his book about the seventeenthcentury Flemish mystic Maria Petyt, there are important sections in which Deblaere treats what is common among all the mystics of the Low Countries. Taking his cue from an expression which is used a number of times by Ruusbroec and others, namely, that the mystic beholds or meets “God with God,” Deblaere writes as follows: In the highest phase of mystical contemplation the soul beholds … the Trinity itself, which with its divine life lives in the soul, which has been made open to this indwelling through created grace. Now God alone can know himself in his inner life, and therefore the mystics say that this highest grace of which the soul partakes is nothing other than the presence of God, who beholds himself in the soul. How the human soul can be so united with God, as it were assimilated with him in its powers, that it sees “God with God” is the deepest secret of the mystery of grace. Catholicism realizes the dream of pantheism, the highest human dream: to become divine. However, it never falls into the contradictions of pantheism, for in the highest union creature and Creator remain forever distinct in their being.22

In other words, as Deblaere writes several paragraphs later, “As a being it [the soul] remains distinct from God. But as consciousness it is caught up into the blissful enjoyment of God through God … . The terms which designate this mystical experience and contemplation – ’above created mode,’ ‘superessential,’ ‘with the Light in the Light,’ ‘of God with God’ – seem to 22

 Albert Deblaere, De mystieke schrijfster Maria Petyt (1623-1677), p. 79.

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point to this significance and could otherwise scarcely have an intelligible content.”23 The powers of the soul experienced as one unified dynamism

The fact that Deblaere can pass so readily from speaking of knowing or seeing “God with God” to speaking of blissfully enjoying “God with [or through] God” is significant, for one of the main themes of his own writings on the mysticism of the Low Countires, and of Ruusbroec in particular, is that the Scholastic debate over the primacy of the intellect or of the will in our union with God is completely foreign to these mystics. Although Ruusbroec does indeed use the language of seeing to characterize the highest level of the mystical life (“the God-seeing life”), it would be altogether erroneous to allow that term or its common substitute (“contemplative”) to imply a primarily intellectual note. Ruusbroec’s use of the term minnende to describe “the contemplative person” (de minnende scouwere) is but one indication that he understands “contemplation” to be not basically an activity of the understanding, but as an all-embracing mystical experience where, in Deblaere’s words, “the powers of the soul, its memory, understanding, and will, are experienced no longer as distinct faculties but as one unified dynamism, the very source of one’s being, under the power of the hidden presence of the beloved.”24 This explains why Ruusbroec, at the end of this third section of the book, can write very simply that this going forth of “the contemplative person” in the divine brightness “is also minlijc. For by means of blissful minne he transcends his creaturehood and finds and savors the riches and delights which God is himself and which he constantly causes to flow forth into the hiddenness of the spirit, where it is like the excellence of God.”25 With this, Ruusbroec turns to the fourth 23

 Ibid., pp. 80-81.  Albert Deblaere, “The Netherlands [School of Mysticism],” in Sacramentum Mundi, 4: 144. 25  Br., 3: 247, 17-21: “es oec minlijc. Want overmids ghebrukelijcke minne lidet hi sine ghescapenheit, ende vendet ende ghesmaect die rijcheit ende die welde die God selve es ende vloeyen dooet sonder onderlaet in die verborghenheit des gheests, daer hi steet 24

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and final section of this last book of the Brulocht, dealing with a minlijc meeting with the Godhead. Minne and “Contemplation” in Section Four of Book Three The Parallelism with the Preceding Section The text of this entire fourth section was given in the first chapter of this study, for it deals in large measure with the theme of that chapter, “minne in the inner life of the Trinity.” For that reason the entire text will not be given again here, but only the last two-thirds of it, which treat our being taken up into this divine life. It may be recalled that earlier in this section Ruusbroec describes the going forth of the Holy Spirit from Father and Son as their mutual minne, something which he calls an “incomprehensible wonder” (ombegripelijcke wonder). The text continues as follows: Where one understands and tastes this wonder without being astonished at it, there one’s spirit is raised above itself and is one with the Spirit of God, and tastes and sees, without limit as does God, the richness which he himself is in the unity of the living ground wherein he possesses himself according to the mode of his uncreated being. Now this blessed meeting is ceaselessly renewed in us actively according to the manner of God, for the Father gives himself in the Son and the Son in the Father in a perpetual sense of contentment and in a minlijc embrace, and this is renewed constantly in the bond of minne, for just as the Father ceaselessly sees all things anew in the

Daar men dit wonder versteet ende ghesmaect sonder verwonderen, daer es de gheest boven hem selven ende één met den Gheeste Gods, ende smaect ende siet, sonder mate alse God, die rijcheit die Hi selve es in eenicheit des levenden Gronts daer hi Hem besit na wise sire onghescapenheit. Nu wert dit verwende ontmoet in ons na die wise Gods, sonder onderlaet werkelijcke vernuwet. Want die Vader ghevet Hem inden Sone, ende die Sone inden Vader in een eewich Welbehagen ende in een minlijc Behelsen. Ende dit vernuwet alle uren in bande van Minnen. Want alsoe ghelijckerwijs alse de Vader sonder onderlaet alle dinc nuwe ansiet in

ghelijc der eedelheit Gods.” Similarly, when writing a few lines earlier of the excellence of this contemplation in the divine Light, he speaks of “each minlijc movement within” (elcken minlijcken inkeere) (Br., 3: 247, 2).

CHAPTER FIVE birth of the Son, so too are all things loved (werden … ghemint) anew by the Father and by the Son in the flowing forth of the Holy Spirit. And this is the active meeting of the Father and the Son in which we are minlijck embraced by means of the Holy Spirit in eternal minne. Now this active meeting and this minlijc embrace is in its ground blissful and without mode, for the fathomless, modeless being of God is so dark and so modeless that it encompasses in itself all the divine modes and the activity and properties of the persons in the rich embrace of the essential unity and produces a divine bliss in this abyss of the ineffable. Here there is a blissful crossing over and a self-transcending sinking down into the essential void, where all divine names and all modes and all living reasons which are reflected in the mirror of divine truth all pass away into simple ineffability, without mode and without reason. For in this groundless abyss of simplicity all things are encompassed in blissful blessedness, and the ground itself remains completely uncomprehended, except in the essential unity. Before this the [divine] persons give way and so does all that lives in God, for here there is nothing other than an eternal rest in a blissful embrace of minlijc immersion. And this is in that modeless being which all interior spirits have chosen above all things. This is the dark stillness in which all minnende become lost. But if we could prepare ourselves in virtues in the ways mentioned, we would almost have to be stripped of our bodies and flee into the wild sea, from which creatures could never call us back. That we might

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die ghebort des Soens, also werden alle dinghe nuwe ghemint vanden Vader ende vanden Sone inden uutvlote des Heilichs Gheests. Ende dit es dat werkelijcke ontmoet des Vaders ende des Soens daer wi minlijck in behelset sijn overmids den Heilighen Gheest in eewigher Minnen. Nu es dit werckelijc ontmoet ende die minlijcke omhelsen in sinen gronde ghebrukelijc ende sonder wise. Want die afgrondighe onwise Gods die es soe duuster ende soe wiseloes, dat si in hare beveet alle godlijcke wisen, ende werc ende eygenscap der Persone inden rijcken omvanghe der weselijcker eenicheit, ende maect een godlijck Ghebruken in dien Abis der Onghenaemtheit. Ende hier es een ghebrukelijc overliden ende een vervlietende inslach in die weselijcke bloetheit, daer alle godlijcke namen ende alle wisen ende alle levende redenen die inden spieghel godlijcker Waerheit ghebeeldet sijn: die vallen alle, in die eenvuldighe Onghenaemtheit, in onwisen ende sonder redene. Want in desen grondelosen wiele der Simpelheit werden alle dinc bevaen in ghebrukelijcker Salicheit, ende die Gront blivet selve al ongegrepen, het en si met weselijcker Eenicheit. Hier-vore moeten die Persone wiken, ende al dat in Gode levet, want hier en es anders niet dan een eewich Rasten in eenen ghebrukelijcken Omvanghe minlijcker ontvlotentheit. Ende dit es in dat wiselose Wesen dat alle innighe gheeste boven alle dinc hebben vercoren. Dit es die doncker Stille daer alle minnende in sijn verloren. Maer mochte wij ons aldus in duechden ghereden, wij souden ons scirre vanden live ontcleden, ende souden vlieten inde welde zeebaren, nemmermeer en mocht ons creatuere herhalen. Dat wij ghebrukelijcke besitten

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possess the essential unity blissfully and might clearly contemplate the unity in the Trinity may the divine minne grant us, for it turns no beggar away. Amen. Amen. (Br., 3: 248, 17-249, 25)

moeten die weselijcke Eenicheit, ende eenheit claerlijcke bescouwen in Drieheit, dat gheve ons die godlijcke minne die en-ghene bedelere en ontseit. Amen. Amen.

Perhaps the first thing to be noted about this passage, and something that could not be observed when the same passage was studied in the first chapter of this study, is the parallelism with the preceding section of this third book of the Brulocht. There, Ruusbroec writes that persons in “the contemplative life” are “transformed and [become] one with the same Light with which they see and which they see,” that Light being elsewhere identified as the Son of God. In this final section of the book, there is a similar transformation, whereby the human spirit is raised “above itself and [made] one with the Spirit of God,” that is, with the Holy Spirit, the minne of Father and Son. These transformations, whereby we become united respectively with the Son and with the Holy Spirit, are clearly on the level of what Ruusbroec calls an “active meeting” (werkelijcke ontmoet), characterized by distinction of persons. In the same two sections there is also a meeting or union that is called “blissful” (ghebrukelijc), occurring “beyond distinction” (boven ondersceet) and beyond determinate modes (boven alle wisen; wiseloes; in onwisen). In the former section, this takes place through the Light which is the Son, for Ruusbroec writes that “the contemplative persons” feel themselves to be the undifferentiated ground (Gront) which “abides … in darkness and without modes,” and adds that this is brought about “by means of this divine Light,” namely, the Son. In the latter section, this entry into the ineffable abyss of simplicity is “by means of the Holy Spirit in eternal minne,” for the embrace of this Spirit is not only “active” (werkelijc) but also “blissful and beyond modes” (ghebrukelijc ende sonder wise).26 Ruusbroec masses image upon image to emphasize the modelessness of this experience: darkness (duuster); a rich embrace of essential oneness (inden 26

 It will be recalled that already in the third section of the book Ruusbroec speaks of “the infinite minne which is the Holy Spirit” and says that “by means of this minne we have died to ourselves and gone forth in minlijc immersion m a modeless way and in darkness” (Br., 3: 244, 5-6 & 8-10).

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rijcken omvanghe der weselijcker eenicheit); an abyss of ineffability (in dien Abis der Onghenaemtheit); a self-transcending immersion in the essential void (een vervlietende inslach in die weselijcke Bloetheit); an incomprehensible ground (die Gront blivet selve al onbegrepen); an eternal rest (een eewich Rasten); and a dark stillness in which all minnende lose themselves (die doncker Stille daer alle minnende in sijn verloren). Minne in the Modeless Experience of Union For purposes of the present study, it is most important to stress that this latter meeting or immersion is brought about by that primal minne which is the Holy Spirit and that this modeless experience of union with the ineffable is explicitly characterized as minlijc: “There is here nothing else than an eternal rest in a blissful embrace of minlijc immersion.” What was already concluded in chapter four of this study, namely, that minne is above all the love which, coming forth from God himself, draws us back to union with him and epitomizes the joy of resting in him, is here strikingly confirmed, for the deepest possible union is the final theme of the entire treatise, a union in which not only minnende creatures but also the divine persons are said to be immersed in “an eternal rest.” Joseph Alaerts sums up this movement concisely at the end of his analysis of the terminology of wesen/weselijc in the Brulocht when he writes: “There is not a fusion, but a communion of love: an embrace, an enjoyment, and a rest which are eternal, although neither the Trinity nor the active [werkelijc] meeting ever disappear. But the pole of unity is clearly preponderant, embracing and inspiring all the rest.”27 The Centrality of both Minne and “the Light” Now that this point has been made, it should be said in conclusion that, however important may be the place of minne in the mystical life according to Ruusbroec, it would nevertheless be wrong to make him out to be a “mystic of love” as over against others who might be termed 27  Joseph Alaerts, “La terminologie ‘essentielle’ dans Die gheestelike brulocht,” pp. 328-29.

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“mystics of knowledge” or “of sight.” Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange once wrote that what essentially characterizes this mystical life is an infused and loving knowledge of God; in other words, it is an infused light and an infused love, which come to us from the Holy Spirit and from his gifts, so as to make us grow more and more in charity. Among certain [mystics] it is love which dominates, among others it is the light. But since one loves only what one knows, and since one cannot love ardently what one knows poorly, every soul must also be very much enlightened in order to be embraced by love.28

In this respect, it would have to be said of Ruusbroec that he could not readily be placed within either of the groups of which GarrigouLagrange speaks, for if minne is central to his mystical doctrine, so too is “the light,” as was only too clear in the present chapter’s consideration of the next-to-last section of book three of the Brulocht. As was then pointed out, the mystical experience for Ruusbroec is “all-embracing” in the sense that the various powers of the soul are experienced not as separate faculties, but as one unified dynamism. Neither the understanding nor the will, neither knowledge nor love, can be said to predominate, for the two are inextricably intertwined in an experience of union in which God is both known or “seen” in a new dimension of consciousness29 and loved “in a blissful embrace of minlijc immersion.” In the Preface to this study, Bernhard Fraling was quoted to the effect that Ruusbroec, “for the first time in the whole realm of Germanic mysticism, presented a coherent synthesis … which grew out of the intuitive power of his view of the whole.” Something of what that  Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Perfection chrétienne et contemplation selon S. Thomas d’Aquin et S. Jean de la Croix, 2 vols. (Saint-Maximin: Editions de La Vie Spirituelle, n.d.), 1: 301. 29  Concerning the knowledge of which mystics speak, Louis Dupré writes that “they use the word knowledge often enough and some have even maintained that they learned more in one moment of illumination than in an entire lifetime. Yet those words refer not to an increase in the ability of comprehension but to a new dimension of consciousness in which what they knew previously takes on a different meaning” (Louis Dupré, The Other Dimension: A Search for the Meaning of Religious Attitudes [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972], p. 541). 28

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implies should now be clear. With remarkable balance, drawing both from his own mystical experience and from the Christian mystical tradition which preceded him, Ruusbroec has brought his major treatise to its conclusion with a powerful vision of what it means to be een minnende scouwere.

PART THREE

A Concluding Synthesis On the basis of the analysis of Ruusbroec’s use of the terminology of minne presented in the preceding two parts of this study, the third part, comprised of chapter six, will synthesize the findings of the earlier chapters in a systematic way.

CHAPTER SIX

Synthesizing our Findings: Minne in the Brulocht Introductory Remarks Already in chapter one of this study, Josef Pieper’s book About Love was used as an aid in summarizing the findings of that chapter. Some of his observations in the early part of that book are also useful for introducing this concluding synthesis. He writes that anyone treating the subject of love finds himself facing the great difficulty of “the sheer overwhelming vastness of the subject,” for the term “love” seems “something like an archipelago of extremely varied meanings.”1 He goes on to note, however, that in many languages there is a single basic word which “apparently underlies all the variety in vocabulary and binds together all special meanings.”2 In Latin that fundamental word is amor and in the Romance languages it is a word derived from that, for example, amour, amore, amor. In modern German that basic word is Liebe and in English it is “love.” It may be, Pieper suggests, that language itself “is telling us not to overlook the underlying unity in all the forms of love.”3 But even in the face of this encouraging fact, Pieper returns to the theme of diversity at the beginning of his next chapter, where he writes: If according to the many voices of language love is both something that we “practice” and do as conscious actors, and also something that comes over us and happens to us like an enchantment; if on the one hand it is an emotion directed toward possessing and enjoying, and on the other  Josef Pieper, About Love, p. 3.  Ibid., p. 4. 3  Ibid., p. 5. 1 2

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PART THREE hand a gesture of self-forgetful surrender and giving which precisely “does not seek its own advantage”; if it is a turning toward someone, possibly God, or other human beings (a friend, a sweetheart, a son, an unknown who needs our help), but possibly also toward the manifold good things of life (sports, science, wine, song); if, finally, it is an act that is ascribed to God Himself and even in a certain sense is said to be identical with Him (“God is love”) – if all this is so, does it not seem rather improbable that any kind of common element can be assumed to lie behind all these phenomena?4

Now if only it be agreed that this listing of some of the most common meanings of the term “love” is reasonably accurate, then it is clear that in Ruusbroec’s Middle Dutch that “fundamental word” for love of which Pieper speaks is minne. It alone, and not liefde or karitate, is used by Ruusbroec in all of these senses. It is something we practice or do as conscious actors, as when Ruusbroec writes of Christ’s working “the strong works of minne”5 or says that the righteous person “loves (mint) actively”6 and “works very much in minne.”7 But minne is also something which comes over us and happens to us, as when Ruusbroec writes that a person experiencing the first manner of union without intermediary “is filled, according to the immersion of himself in his essential being, with the fathomless delights and riches of God. And from this richness there flows into the unity of the higher powers an embrace and a fullness of felt minne.”8 Concerning the second pair in Pieper’s list, minne is on the one hand clearly directed toward possessing and enjoying. For example, in the section on the “storm of minne” Ruusbroec writes that the spiritual hunger here experienced “is an interior craving and striving of the minnende power and of the created spirit for an uncreated good. And because the 4

 Ibid., p. 18.  Br., 2: 177, 21-22: “Hi wrochte die stercke werke van minnen.” 6  Br., 2: 226, 23: “hi werckelijcke mint.” 7  Br., 2: 227, 9: “hi arbeyt seer in minnen.” 8  Br., 2: 224, 11-16: “Ende hi wert vervult, na der ontsonckenheit sijns selves in sinen weselijcken sine, met der afgrondigher welden ende rijcheit Gods. Ende ute deser rijcheit vloeyt in die eenicheit der overster crachte een omvanc ende eene volheit van ghevoelijcker minnen.” 5

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spirit desires to enjoy, and has been called and invited to this by God, it always wills to bring it about.”9 But there is also the aspect of selfforgetful surrender and self-giving which does not seek its own advantage, something well illustrated by Ruusbroec’s speaking of the greatness of the person “who overcomes and renounces his own will in minne and speaks to God in submissive reverence, saying ‘Thy will be done in all things – not my will.’”10 Pieper next speaks of the various persons or objects toward which love turns, and firstly toward God. Such a turning is, of course, one of the main themes of the Brulocht, in whose opening pages Ruusbroec already writes of a person’s “perfect minne toward God.”11 But minne is also directed toward other human beings, as when Ruusbroec writes that a person whose will has been supernaturally adorned goes forth in minne to all classes of people, “since this person has a minne common to all.”12 The noun, when qualified by the adjective natuerlijc, is also used in the pejorative sense of self-love, seeking only oneself and one’s own profit,13 while the verb minnen is used several times in the sense of loving things apart from God or in an undue manner.14 Finally, Pieper notes that love is an act sometimes ascribed to God or even said to be identical with God. Both uses are found often in the Brulocht. The Father’s many gifts are said by Ruusbroec to be given “out of minne and gratuitous goodness,”15 the Son became man because of his “inconceivable minne,”16 and both Father and Son are a number of

9

 Br., 2: 199, 8-12: “Dat es een inwindich ghiren ende crighen der minnender cracht ende dies ghescapens gheests in een ongescapen Goet. Ende want die gheest ghebruken begheert, ende hi daer-toe van Gode gheeyschet ende ghenodet is, so wilt hijt emmer volbringhen.” 10  Br., 2: 214, 8-11: “die sijns selfs willen verwint ende vertijt in minnen ende spreect te Gode in onderworpender weerdicheit: ‘Dinen wille ghescie in allen dinghen, niet de mine.’” 11  Br., 1: 109, 21-22: “volcomene minne te Gode.” 12  Br., 2: 186, 21-22: “Want nu dese mensche eene ghemeyne minne dreghet.” 13  Br., 2: 231, 23-232, 3, quoted in the next-to-last footnote in chapter four. 14  Br., 1: 130, 7-10 and 138, 9-11. 15  Br., 2: 205, 27-28: “van minnen ende van vrier goeden.” 16  Br., 1: 111, 1: “sine ombegripelijcke minne.”

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times called our minnere.17 The Holy Spirit’s identity as the minne of the Father and the Son is a theme that appears at least once in each of the three books of the treatise,18 and it is possible that in the prayer with which Ruusbroec concludes the entire Brulocht and in which he prays that “the divine minne” might grant us the gift of “contemplation,” minne refers to the Godhead as such and not only to the third person of the Trinity (for in this case the prayer would parallel the one with which he concludes book two of the treatise: “May God aid us that this might come about. Amen.”). That Ruusbroec should have used the term minne especially when speaking of love in a religious sense is not at all surprising. In the multivolume dictionary of Middle Dutch written by E. Verwijs, J. Verdam, and others over the course of several decades, it is pointed out that minne was a term regularly used to signify “religious love; love of one’s neighbor; Christian love; the love coming from or directed to God, Christ, the Holy Virgin, the saints”; this held true up to the sixteenth century, when the use of minne began to be infrequent, until finally it was replaced by the noun liefde except for the case of a few compound nouns and dialectal expressions.19 Although no reason is given for the eventual disuse of the term, the basic reason is likely the same as that pointed out by Pieper for the abandonment of the cognate term Minne in the German language. He writes that in medieval German poetry as well as in general, nonpoetic usage, Minne was the usual word for love, signifying not only man’s devoted love for God (Gottesminne), but the solicitude accorded those in need of help, and the love between man and woman. But by the year 1200 Walther von der Vogelweide was already complaining that ‘many a false coin is struck’ with the image of Minne. The word remained in use for quite a while; but the progressive vulgarization of its meaning eventually had the consequence that employing it ‘became impossible.’ Then it was extinguished with a kind of fierceness; it was

17  See, e.g., the sections “God as Our Minnere” and “Christ’s Minne toward Mankind” in chapter two of this study. 18  Br., 1: 111, 25-27; Br., 2: 182, 21-22 and 194, 21-24; Br., 3: 248, 8-11. 19  E. Verwijs, J. Verdam, et al., Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, 11 vols. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1885-1941), 4: col. 1622.

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even replaced in already printed books by pasting the word Liebe over it.20

In any case, since in Ruusbroec’s day the Middle Dutch term minne, with all its related forms, still conveyed a fullness and depth of meaning which in later centuries it would yield to the term liefde, it is clearly one of those terms which Karl Rahner calls “primordial words.” Such words, he writes, are not able to be precisely defined, since all definitions “have constant recourse to new words, and this process must come to a stop with the ultimate words, … [which] possess only that ‘simplicity’ which conceals within itself all mysteries. These are the primordial words which form the basis of man’s spiritual existence.”21 Still, if no single, allembracing definition of minne can be expected, it is at least possible to summarize its basic significance in the main areas in which Ruusbroec uses the term. These major spheres of usage are three: (1) the Holy Spirit as minne, (2) minne as a fundamental disposition of God toward us, and (3) minne as a reality in us, given us by God. This study will accordingly conclude with a synthetic presentation of these three areas of usage. The Three Basic Uses of the Term Minne The Holy Spirit as Minne Of all the uses of the term minne in the Brulocht, this first-named is the most fundamental. If the whole movement of Ruusbroec’s thought can rightly be said to mirror the image of God as a flowing, ebbing sea, then the study of any particular facet of his mysticism should likewise begin at the source – within the Godhead – from which all that is good 20  Pieper, About Love, p. 6. As his sources for this information, Pieper refers to Hermann Paul, Deutsches Wӧrterbuch, 4th ed., rev. by Karl Euling (Halle, 1935) and KlugeGӧtze, Etymologisches Wӧrterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 11th ed. (Berlin, 1934) p. 392. Further information about the etymology and eventual disuse of the term in German can be found in Dorothea Wiercinski, Minne: Herkunft und Anwendungsschichten eines Wortes (Cologne and Graz: Bӧhlau Verlag, 1964). 21  Karl Rahner, “Priest and Poet,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 3: The Theology of the Spiritual Life, trans. Karl-H. and Boniface Kruger (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1967; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1967), p. 297.

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flows forth and to which all returns. And there, within the Trinity, one finds an eternal dynamism of love. The relevant passages, from each of the three books of the treatise, have all been cited and commented upon in the analytic chapters of this study and need not all be cited again here. Ruusbroec teaches that the Father constantly begets the Son and that through their contemplation of each other there issues forth or is breathed forth a third person, the Holy Spirit, who is the minne of them both and a bond uniting not only Father and Son but also all good persons in heaven and on earth. In this doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the minne of the Father and Son it is important that this not be understood as some kind of abstract definition of the third person of the Trinity or, indeed, as something applicable only to this person. To borrow a phrase from Viktor Warnach’s study of agapē in the New Testament (a phrase used by him with special reference to the Johannine statement “God is love”), the significance of such an expression of identity is that “God in his inmost being or, more exactly, in the deepest expression of his being by which he reveals himself to us, is agapē: creatively giving, merciful, saving, and unifying love.”22 That Ruusbroec should “limit” this identification to but one person of the Trinity is not of ultimate significance, for it is precisely as the love of the Father and of the Son that the Spirit is named minne. One advantage of this Ruusbroeckian limitation is that the mystic can thereby bring out more clearly the fundamental unitive function of minne, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit is further called the “bond of minne” which unites not only the persons of the Trinity but all persons of good will: “They [the Father and Son] breathe forth a Spirit, that is, a minne, which is a bond between them both and among all the saints and all good persons in heaven and on earth.”23 This inner-Trinitarian minne is, moreover, not merely unitive in a general sense of the term, but in an intensely affective or joyful way, as is so beautifully said by Ruusbroec in the final section of the Brulocht, when he 22  Viktor Warnach, Agape: Die Liebe als Grundmotiv der neutestamentlichen Theologie (Düsseldorf: Patmos Verlag, 1951), p. 482. 23  Br., 1: 111, 25-27: “Ende sie gheesten eenen Geest, dat es eene minne, die een bandt harer beyder es, ende alder heylighen ende alre goeder menschen in hemelrijcke ende in eertrijcke.”

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writes that “the Father gives himself in the Son and the Son in the Father in a perpetual sense of contentment and in a minlijc embrace, and this is renewed constantly in the bond of minne, for just as the Father ceaselessly sees all things anew in the birth of the Son, so too are all things loved (werden … ghemint) anew by the Father and the Son in the flowing forth of the Holy Spirit.”24 As used of the Holy Spirit, the term minne thus clearly expresses the unitive-affective dimension of divine love, a dimension which is in no sense limited to the persons of the Trinity but extends from there to creation as well (even as St. Paul writes that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” [Romans 5:5]). This leads to the next section of this concluding synthesis, minne as a fundamental disposition of God toward us. Minne as a Fundamental Disposition of God toward Us This second area of usage is intimately connected with the first, for it is not merely a question of the persons of the Trinity loving one another and then loving creatures as well; rather, as is so clearly stated in the passage just cited from the third book of the Brulocht, it is in the very spiration or “flowing forth” of the Holy Spirit from Father and Son that “all things are loved” with a minne that is ever new. The wisdom, truth, goodness, generosity, and all such properties which are in God our minnere are called “minlijc properties,”25 and it was from such dispositions that he created angels and men.26 This minlijc care of God for us extends beyond the time of our creation, for “through the Holy Spirit and the eternal Wisdom, God inclines to every creature individually and bestows gifts and enflames with minne each one according to his excellence and according to the state in which he was established and chosen because of his virtues and the eternal providence

24

 Br., 3: 248, 24-30: “Want die Vader ghevet Hem inden Sone, ende die Sone inden Vader in een eewich Welbehagen ende in een minlijc Behelsen. Ende dit vernuwet alle uren in bande van Minnen. Want alsoe ghelijckerwijs alse de Vader sonder onderlaet alle dinc nuwe aensiet in die ghebort des Soens, alsoe werden alle dinghe nuwe ghemint vanden Vader ende vanden Sone inden uutvlote der Heilichs Gheests.” 25  Br., 2: 218, 11: “minlijcke eyghenscape.” 26  Br., 1: 110, 26-31.

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of God.”27 All of these gifts, including the incomparable one of God’s sending his only Son for our redemption, were bestowed out of minne, up to and beyond the time when Christ “died for us out of minne.”28 Finally, these gifts are explicitly said by Ruusbroec to include the gift of minne itself, for God “has poured his grace and his minne into our souls”29 and wills to visit us “with a rich outpouring of his fathomless minne, for he wishes to dwell in bliss in the minnende spirit.”30 In this second area of usage, minne may therefore be said to be God’s self-giving benevolence toward us, his effective will for our true good, which most fundamentally consists in union with him. Minne as a Reality in Us Introductory Remarks

Minne is, then, as a gift given us by God, also a reality in us. But a reality of what kind? Ruusbroec’s references to God’s dwelling in us and our dwelling in God31 allow one to say that ultimately this minne is God’s gift of himself, but there are too many passages in the Brulocht where Ruusbroec makes an explicit distinction between “our minne” and “divine minne” to permit one to make any kind of identification pure and simple; the reality is more nuanced than that.32 As an aid toward synthesizing what Ruusbroec says about minne in us, it should be helpful to turn to two passages where the mystic clearly expresses 27  Br., 2: 194, 24-29: “Overmids den Heilighen Gheest ende die eewighe wijsheit neyghet hem God tote elcker creatueren met onderscheede, ende gavet ende ontfunct in minnen elcken na sine edelheit, ende na sinen staet daer hi in gheset es ende vercoren overmids duechde ende die eewighe voersienicheit Gods.” 28  Br., 1: 115, 18: “die om ons van minnen starf.” Many other such expressions are noted in chapter two of this study. 29  Br., 2: 154, 21-22: “sine gracie ende sine minne in onse ziele gestort hevet.” 30  Br., 2: 208, 13-15: “met rijcken vloeyene sire grondeloser minnen, want Hi wilt in welden wonen in die minnende gheeste.” 31  See, e.g., Br., 1: 142, 25-27: “When it [the soul] loves (mint) and rests above all gifts and above itself and above all creatures, then it lives in God and God in it.” 32  Ruusbroec makes such a distinction, for example, in his description of the “storm of minne” (Br., 2: 199, 7-201, 2), but does not attempt to clarify the relationship in any systematic way. The difficulty of attempting any clarification of this kind is indicated by Gerard Gilleman, S.J., in his widely acclaimed work on charity in moral theology, where he writes:

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what in the earlier chapters of this study was called a “threefold dialectic.” One of these passages is found in Ruusbroec’s description of the third manner of union without intermediary in “the interior life,” where he writes: Thus is a person made righteous and goes to God with interior minne in eternal activity and enters into God with blissful inclination in eternal rest and remains in God and nevertheless goes out to all creatures in communal minne in virtues and works of righteousness. And this is the highest level of the interior life. (Br., 2: 227, 19-25)

Aldus es de mensche gherecht ende gheet te Gode met innegher minnen in eewighen werkene ende hi gheet in Gode met ghebrukelijcker neyghinghen in eewigher rasten, ende hi blivet in Gode ende gheet nochtans ute tot allen creatueren in ghemeynre minnen in doechden ende in gherechticheiden. Ende dit es dat hoochste van innighen levene.

The other passage, in which there is again a threefold dialectic of simultaneously going out to creatures, going within to God, and resting in God, describes that “place” in the human spirit where the higher powers of memory, understanding, and will find their unity – ”the unity of the spirit.” Ruusbroec writes as follows: For in the unity of the spirit there is a union of the highest powers, and here grace and minne abide essentially, above works, for this is the source of karitate and of all virtue. Here there is an eternal flowing forth in karitate and in virtues, and an eternal movement inward in an interior hunger for savoring God, and an eternal abiding in onefold minne. (Br., 2: 201, 15-21)

Want in eenicheit des gheest es eeninghe der overster crachte, ende hier es gracie ende minne weselijcke, boven wercken, want dit es die oerspronc der karitaten ende alre doechde. Hier es een eewich ute-vloeyen in karitaten, ende in doechden, ende een eewich inkeeren in innighen honghere om Gods te ghesmaken, ende een eewich inbliven in eenvoldigher minne.

“Charity somehow transfers trinitarian love into us, or rather transfers us into it. And when we love someone with charity, we enter with him into a communication like to that of the Father with the Son, or of the Father and the Son with the Spirit … . It is obvious that this divine love bestowed on us becomes our own in some real manner, and so incurs a limitation, although at the same time retaining its infinity. It is useless to try to inclose in our concepts this love whose one pole is so closely in contact with God that it is God Himself, while its other pole is identified with our love” (Gerard Gilleman, S.J., The Primacy of Charity in Moral Theology, trans. from the second French ed. by William F. Ryan, S.J., and André Vachon, S.J. [Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1959], p. 157).

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The significance of minne in each of the three moments of this basic Ruusbroeckian dialectic will now be considered. “Communal minne” and karitate: The movement out to other creatures

When, in the first of the two passages just cited, our going out to all crearures “in virtues and works of righteousness” is said to be “in communal minne,” the adjective “communal” (ghemeyn) indicates the universal scope of this minne. Such “communal minne” is a mirroring of God’s own going forth to all he has created and so reflects his universal benevolence. Generally, however, Ruusbroec uses the term karitate rather than minne when he speaks of our going forth “in virtues and works of righteousness,” as in the latter of the two passages just cited to illustrate the threefold dialectic (“an eternal flowing forth in karitate and in virtues”). He writes elsewhere that we should “flow forth with an ample karitate in heaven and on earth, with clear discernment,”33 and adduces the karitate of Christ as a model for the kind of good works we should perform for others in their physical or spiritual need.34 But while Ruusbroec often writes of the “works of karitate,” it is clear that karitate is not so much a matter of the works themselves as of the disposition with which they are performed. Thus, in condemning self-seeking “natural minne,” Ruusbroec contrasts it with karitate and says that while in their external works they may be almost impossible to distinguish, still “their intentionalities are different”35: karitate leads one to seek the honor of God in all one does, whereas “natural minne” leads one to seek only oneself and one’s own advantage. This contrast between “natural minne” and karitate implies that the latter is itself a form of minne. That this is so has already been seen in chapter two of this study, where it was noted that Ruusbroec speaks of “the created minne, which is called karitate, which he [Christ] had in his 33

 Br., 2: 193, 25-26: “ute-vloeyen met wider karitaten in hemel ende in eerde, met claerre beschedenheit.” 34  Br., 1: 113, 12-114, 2. 35  Br., 2: 231, 34-35: “die meyninghe sijn onghelijc.”

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soul,”36 and in chapter three, where it was pointed out that Ruusbroec once calls karitate “divine minne” (godlijcke minne) inasmuch as it is the minne we have toward God.37 In this last respect, the mystic can also write that “karitate constantly strives upward to the kingdom of God, that is, to God himself.”38 This usage is, however, infrequent in the Brulocht, where karitate regularly signifies that aspect of love which goes out to other persons through various forms of virtuous activity. The movement of “striving upward” is normally described by Ruusbroec through other forms of “love” terminology, as will be seen in the next section. “Interior minne”: The movement of our spirit back to God

In one of the two passages cited earlier in this chapter to illustrate Ruusbroec’s threefold dialectic, the mystic writes of “an eternal movement inward in an interior hunger for savoring God,” and in the other passage of a person’s going “to God with interior minne in eternal activity.” It is significant that in both places Ruusbroec uses the term “interior,” for “interiority” (innicheit) connotes fervor or ardor, as is evident in Ruusbroec’s writing that “interiority is a sensible fire of minne, which the Spirit of God has set aflame and makes burn. Interiority enflames and drives and urges the person from within, and he does not know whence it comes or what has happened to him.”39 This movement back to God has, then, markedly affective overtones. According to Ruusbroec’s anthropology, this movement takes place on various levels: that of the heart; that of the higher powers; and that of “the unity of the spirit,” from which these powers flow forth and in which they find their unity. Each of these levels will be considered in turn. 36  Br., 1: 111, 7-8: “die ghescapene minne die karitate hetet, die Hi hadde in sire zielen.” 37  Br., 1: 108, 29-109, 26. 38  Br., 1: 122, 9-10: “karitate crighet altoes opweert tot den rijcke Gods, dat es God selve.” 39  Br., 2: 153, 14-18: “innicheit es een ghevoelijc vier van minnen, dat die Gheest Gods ontfunct heeft ende bernen doet. Innicheit bernet ende drivet ende stoket den mensche van binnen, ende hi en weet wanen het comt ochte wat hem ghesciet es.”

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The heart. For Ruusbroec, “the heart” is the source of bodily life, for from it flow all bodily activities and the five senses.40 On this level, that “interior hunger for savoring God” which is characteristic of the person’s whole movement back to God is seen in terms of both liefde and minne. These two terms are here sometimes used to designate a single reality, as in the following sentence, where together they are the subject of the sentence: “Felt liefde and minne is a desirous savoring delight which one has toward God as toward an eternal good in which all good is encompassed.”41 Other such passages were analyzed in chapter four of this study, where it was seen that at times the two terms are used interchangeably. The imagery of fire or of heat is used with both liefde and minne, and various physical manifestations of “spiritual inebriation” (gheestelijcke dronckenheit) are mentioned, such as copious weeping, running about, and crying out in a loud voice. At this level, minne is often characterized as “felt” or “sensible” (ghevoelijc) and thus signifies a strongly affective movement back to God. The use of the term liefde is restricted to this level and so can be said to be the felt or affective aspect of love in the domain of “the heart.” The higher powers. Although Ruusbroec does not use the term liefde at this level, his descriptions of minne are in many respects similar to such descriptions at the level of the heart. This is true above all as regards the imagery of fire. In his treatment of the adornment of the third of the higher powers, the will, Ruusbroec writes of a heat that is breathed into the soul and there “enflames the will just like a fire and swallows up and consumes all things in unity, and flows over and through all the powers of the soul with rich gifts and special excellence, and produces in the will a finely wrought, spiritual minne excluding all effort.”42 Continuing this imagery, he writes that all who have experienced this 40

 Br., 1: 145, 17-25.  Br., 2: 153, 23-25: “Ghevoelijcke liefde ende minne, dat es een begherlijcke smakende ghelost diemen hevet te Gode als tot eenen eewighen Goede daer alle goet in besloten is.” 42  Br., 2: 183, 32-184, 5: “ontfunct den wille ghelijc den viere, ende verslindet ende verteret alle dinc in eenicheit, ende overvloeyt ende dorevloeyt alle de crachte der zielen met rijcken gaven ende met zonderlingher edelheit, ende si maket in den wille eene subtile gheestelijcke minne zonder aerbeit.” 41

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“ceaselessly come together and produce a burning flame in minne so that they might complete the work of God’s being loved (ghemint) according to his excellence.”43 Like a fiery flame, minne at this level is described as “upwards-tending” and thereby accompanying “an interior inclination toward [our] source,”44 namely, toward God. Here, too, minne thus signifies a strongly affective movement back to God. The unity of the spirit. It is at this “topmost” or “inmost” level of the human spirit that the inclination of our minne back to God becomes particularly intense. Here Ruusbroec locates the “storm of minne,” in which “God’s interior stirring and touch makes us hunger and strive, for the Spirit of God pursues our spirit.”45 In this “deepest meeting and … most interior and sharpest encounter,” each spirit strives after the other “in minne” until finally the human spirit “is consumed in the fire of minne and comes so deeply into God’s touch that it is conquered in all its striving and comes to nought in all its works; it exhausts itself and itself becomes minne above all exercises of devotion.”46 Although Ruusbroec occasionally describes this “unity of the spirit” as the “empty” or “still” being of the spirit, it is clear that the minlijc striving of the human spirit at this level is anything but “still.” What Ruusbroec is here describing has been phrased in more contemporary terms by William Johnston, S.J., who writes that there is an existential longing at the root of all longing. This is the love of contingent being for the totality, the love of the part for the whole, the love of the creature for the creator … .

43  Br., 2: 185, 23-26: “Ende hier-omme vergaderen alle gheeste sonder onderlaet, ende maken eene berrende vlamme in minnen, op-datsi dat werc volvoeren mochten dat God ghemint worde na sine edelheit.” 44  Br., 2: 196, 14-15: “opdragender minne ende innichs toevoeghens in haren oerspronc.” 45  Br., 2: 199, 32-34: “Gods inwindighe rueren ende gherinen maect ons hongherich ende doet ons crighen, want die gheest Gods jaghet onsen gheest.” 46  Br., 2: 200, 30-34: “Aldus wert die gheest verberret int vier der minnen, ende comt soe diepe in Gods gherinen, dat hi wert verwonnen in al sijn crighen, ende gheet te niete in al sijn werken; ende werket hem ute, ende wert selve minne boven al toevoeghen.”

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PART THREE … What is not often realized is that this love is an all-consuming and passionate fire which can envelop the personality and tear people asunder. It is particularly consuming and passionate in the heart of one who has experienced even to a small degree God’s passionate love for him.47

It is clear, then, that minne in this movement of the creature back to the Creator most frequently manifests itself as an ardent striving for God, a movement of one’s whole being, caught up in what Ruusbroec often calls “the fire of minne.” But also to be noticed in his description of the “storm of minne” is the fact that finally the striving, minnende spirit “is conquered in all its striving.” Here there is union, the experience of union, for “God’s touch and our striving in minne become a onefold minne.”48 It is minne at this level of experienced union which will next be considered. “Blissful minne”: The joyful union of our spirit with God

In addition to the element of active striving on the part of minne, which Ruusbroec sometimes refers to as “active minne” (werkelijcke minne), the preceding chapters have shown numerous examples of another element, characterized by passivity and joyful rest. Minne in this moment of the threefold Ruusbroeckian dialectic is regularly characterized as “blissful” (ghebrukelijc). That there should be this moment is only to be expected. As Pieper points out several places in his study of love, loving means not only striving for what is not yet possessed but also rejoicing in what is possessed; he further writes that “if happiness is truly never anything but happiness in love, then the fruit of that highest form of love [agapē, caritas] must be the utmost happiness, for which language offers such names as felicity, beatitude, bliss.”49 It is important to note that Ruusbroec does not locate this moment of felicitous rest only at the most advanced levels of the mystical life. 47  William Johnston, S.J., The Inner Eye of Love: Mysticism and Religion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), p. 138. 48  Br., 2: 200, 27-28: “Aldus wert Gods gherinen ende onser minnen crighen eene eenvoldighe minne.” 49  Pieper, About Love, p. 119.

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Already at the conclusion of his treatment of “the active life” he writes that “when the soul thus inclines with minne and intent toward God above all that it understands, it hereby rests in God and God in it.”50 In book two, on “the interior life,” Ruusbroec frequently writes of “blissful minne” in contrast to the activity of karitate, as when he says that “karitate must eternally work in the likeness, and unity with God is to rest forevermore in blissful minne.”51 The deepest experience of blissful rest is, however, reserved for the minnende scouwere, for this true “contemplative” is introduced by the minlijc embrace of the Holy Spirit into an experience of union in which “there is nothing other than an eternal rest in a blissful embrace of minlijc immersion.”52 Here there is no longer any experienced distinction between “our minne” and the divine minne, for the former is taken up into the most intimate of experienced unions with the latter. The contrast here between the moments of actively striving and blissfully resting is quite clear, but is made even more explicit in a later treatise of Ruusbroec’s which might appropriately be cited at this point. Toward the end of Van seven trappen in den graed der gheesteliker minnen (Seven Steps in the Ladder of Spiritual Love), Ruusbroec writes: “Our work is to love (minnen) God; our bliss is to permit ourselves to be embraced in God’s minne.53 This allows us to conclude that at this latter moment of the dialectic of love it is no longer a question of “our minne,” for this, which Ruusbroec has already said has been poured into our soul by God, has now fully returned to its divine source and become one with it in a union experienced as “beyond distinction” (boven ondersceet). 50  Br., 1: 142, 16-19: “Daer die siele haer aldus neyghet met minnen ende met meyninghen in Gode boven al dat si versteet, hier-met rustet si ende woent in Gode, ende God in hare.” 51  Br., 2: 216, 29-30: “Want karitate inder ghelijcheit moet eewelijcke werken, ende eenheit met Gode in ghebrukelijcker minnen sal emmermeer rasten.” 52  Br., 3: 249, 14-16: “hier en es anders niet dan een eewich Rasten in eenen ghebrukelijcken Omvanghe minlijcker ontvlotentheit.” 53  Jan van Ruusbroec, Werken, vol. 3: Van seven trappen in den graed der gheesteliker minnen [plus six other of his treatises], ed. L. Reypens, S.J. & M. Schurmans, S.J., 2nd ed., rev. (Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 1947), pp. 268-69: “Onse werken, dat es Gode minnen. Onse ghebruken, dat es ghedooeghen behelst te sine in Gods Minne.”

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At this level, minne is Gods Minne, the Holy Spirit, enfolding the “contemplative” in the same divine love which is the bond between Father and Son and the font from which all creation has come forth. It is now also clear that the most fundamental aspect of minne in all its forms is the unitive. Ruusbroec’s exemplarism, already considered in the preceding chapter of this study, allows an even further precision, for it is not so much a question of our coming into union with God for the first time as of being reunited with that “flowing, ebbing sea” from whom we once came forth. Paraphrasing Paul Tillich, Pieper writes that love “is not so much the union of those who are strangers to one another as the reunion of those who have been alienated from one another. But alienation can exist only on the basis of a pre-existing original oneness.”54 That “pre-existing original oneness” is very evident in the Brulocht, and it is the most excellent role of divine minne to draw us back to this, “that modeless being which all interior spirits have chosen above all things, … the dark stillness in which all minnende become lost.”55 For Jan van Ruusbroec to have taught this in so magisterial a way is one of the major reasons why it has been said of him that “in all probability … there has been no greater contemplative; and certainly there has been no greater mystical writer.”56

54  Pieper, About Love, p. 15. Pieper’s reference to Tillich is to his Love, Power, Justice (New York, 1954), p. 25. 55  Br., 3: 249, 17-19: “dat wiselose Wesen dat alle innighe gheeste boven alle dinc hebben vercoren, … die doncker Stille daer alle minnende in sijn verloren.” 56  Cuthbert Butler, Western Mysticism, pp. 272-73.

Selected Bibliography Works of Jan van Ruusbroec In the Original Middle Dutch Werken. Edited by Jan Baptist David. 6 vols. Ghent: Drukkerij AnnootBraeckman, 1858-68. Werken. Edited by the Ruusbroecgenootschap. 4 vols. Mechelen: Het Kompas, 1932-34; Amsterdam: De Spieghel, 1932-34; 2nd ed., rev., Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 1944-48. Opera Omnia. Editor-in-chief: Guido de Baere. 10 vols. Tielt: Lannoo; Turnhout: Brepols, 1981-2006. In Translation (Arranged in Chronological Order) Opera omnia. Edited and translated by Laurentius Surius. Cologne: Quentel, 1552; 2nd ed., Cologne: Quentel: 1608-09; 3rd ed., Cologne: Friessem, 1692. Oeuvres de Ruysbroeck 1’Admirable. Translated by Bénédictins de Saint-Paul de Wisques/Oosterhout. 6 vols. Brussels and Paris: Vromant & Cie., 1917-38. Oeuvres choisies. Translated by J.-A. Bizet. Paris: Aubier, 1946. De verhevenheid van de geestelijke bruiloft. Translated by L. Moereels, S.J. Tielt and Amsterdam: Lannoo, 1977. John Ruusbroec: The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works. Translated by James A. Wiseman, O.S.B. New York: Paulist, 1985. Works by Other Authors Alaerts, Joseph, S.J. “Het ‘wezenlijke’ in de zielsopgang naar de mystiek.” Bijdragen: Tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 30 (1969): 279-97. —. “Het ‘wezenlijke’ in het mystieke verenigingsleven.” Bijdragen: Tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 30 (1969): 415-35. —. “La terminologie ‘essentielle’ dans Die gheestelike brulocht.” Ons Geestelijk Erf 49 (1975): 248-330.

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—. “La terminologie ‘essentielle’ dans Die gheestelike brulocht et Dat rijcke der ghelieven.” Ons Geestelijk Erf 49 (1975): 337-65. Ampe, Albert, S.J. Kernproblemen uit de leer van Ruusbroec. Studien en textuitgaven van ons geestelijk erf, vols. 11-13. Tielt: Uitgeverij Lannoo, 1950-57. —. “La théologie mystique de 1’ascension de 1’âme selon le bienheureux Jean de Ruusbroec.” Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 36 (1960): 188-201 & 303-22. Arblaster, John, and Rob Faesen, eds. A Companion to John of Ruusbroec. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014. Axters, Stephanus, O.P. Geschiedenis van de vroomheid in de Nederlanden. 4 vols. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1950-60. —. La spiritualité des Pays-Bas: L’évolution d’une doctrine mystique. Bibliotheca Mechliniensis, series 2, fasc. 1. Louvain: E. Nauwelaerts, 1948; Paris: J. Vrin, 1948. English translation: The Spirituality of the Old Low Countries. Translated by Donald Attwater. London: Blackfriars, 1954. Butler, Cuthbert. Western Mysticism. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1923. Cognet, Louis. Introduction aux mystiques rhéno-flamands. Paris: Desclée, 1965. d’Asbeck, Melline. La mystique de Ruysbroeck l’Admirable. Paris: Librairie Leroux, 1928. —, ed. and trans. Documents relatifs à Ruysbroeck. Paris: Librairie Leroux, 1931. Deblaere, Albert, S.J. De mystieke schrijfster Maria Petyt (1623-1677). Ghent: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde, 1962. —. “The Netherlands [School of Mysticism].” In Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology. Edited by Karl Rahner, with Cornelius Ernst and Kevin Smyth. 6 vols. New York: Herder and Herder, 1969; London: Burns and Oates, 1969. 4: 143-46. de Vreese, Willem. “Ruysbroeck (Jean de).” Biographie nationale 20: col. 507-91. The Biographie nationale was published by the Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-arts de Belgique from 1908-10. —, ed. Bijdragen tot de kennis van het leven en de werken van Jan van Ruusbroec. Ghent: Drukkerij A. Siffer, 1896. Materials in this book first appeared in numbers of the periodical Het Belfort in 1895-96. Fraling, Bernhard. Der Mensch vor dem Geheimnis Gottes: Untersuchungen zur geistlichen Lehre des Jan van Ruusbroec. Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1967. —. Mystik und Geschichte; Das “ghemeyne leven” in der Lehre des Jan van Ruusbroec. Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1974. Henry, Paul. “La mystique trinitaire du bienheureux Jean Ruusbroec.” Recherches de science religieuse 39/40 (1951/52): 335-68 and 41 (1953): 51-75. McGinn, Bernard. The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism: 1350-1550. Vol. 5 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad, 2012.

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Mommaers, Paul, S.J. “Bulletin d’histoire de la spiritualité: L’école néerlandaise.” Revue d’histoire de la spiritualité 49 (1973): 465-92. —. The Land Within: The Process of Possessing and Being Possessed by God according to the Mystic Jan van Ruysbroeck. Translated by David N. Smith. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1975. Orcibal, Jean. Saint Jean de la Croix et les mystiques rhéno-flamands. Paris: Desclée, 1966. Pieper, Josef. About Love. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1974. Pomerius, Henricus. De origine monasterii Viridisvallis et de gestis patrum et fratrum in primordiali fervore ibidem degentium. In Analecta Bollandiana 4 (1885): 263-322. Reypens, Leonce, S.J. “Le sommet de la contemplation mystique chez le bienheureux Jean de Ruusbroec.” Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 3 (1922): 250-72. Rondet, Henri, S.J. “La divinisation du chrétien.” Nouvelle revue théologique 71 (1949): 449-76 & 561-88. Ruusbroecgenootschap, ed. Jan van Ruusbroec: Leven, Werken. Mechelen: Het Kompas, 1931; Amsterdam, De Spieghel, 1931. Uyttenhove, Lieven. Embraced by the Father and the Son in the Unity of the Holy Spirit: A Study of the Trinity and the Mystical Life in the Works of Jan van Ruusbroec. Annua nuntia Lovaniensia, LXV. Leuven, Paris, and Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2012. Van de Walle, A., O.F.M. “Is Ruusbroec pantheist?” Ons Geestelijk Erf 12 (1938): 359-91 and 13 (1939): 66-105. Van Mierlo, Jozef, S.J. “Over het ontstaan der Germaansche mystiek.” Ons Geestelijk Erf 1 (1927): 11-37. Van Nieuwenhove, Rik. Jan van Ruusbroec: Mystical Theologian of the Trinity. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003. Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J.; Stoett, F. A. Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek. 11 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1885-1941. Warnach, Viktor. Agape: Die Liebe als Grundmotiv der neutestamentlichen Theologie. Düsseldorf: Patinos Verlag, 1951. Wiercinski, Dorothea. Minne: Herkunft und Anwendungsschichten eines Wortes. Niederdeutsche Studien, no. 11. Cologne and Graz: Böhlau Verlag, 1964. Wiseman, James A., O.S.B. “‘To Be God with God’: The Autotheistic Sayings of the Mystics.” Theological Studies 51 (1990): 230-51.