BOOK VIII.
FROM THE DEATH OF POPE BONIFACE VIII TO THE
END OF THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE,
A.D. 1303-1418.
CHAPTER X.
SECTARIES—MYSTICS.
While the church was agitated by there forming movements
of Wyclif and Hus, some of the older parties which had incurred its
condemnation continued to exist, and to draw on themselves fresh censures and
penalties.
The Cathari, although
almost extinguished in southern France by the wars of the thirteenth century,
and by the relentless vigilance of the inquisition, were very numerous in
Bosnia and the neighbouring regions; and the popes found little inclination on
the part of successive kings of Hungary to exert themselves for the suppression
of the sect.
The Waldenses also, as appears from the records of the
inquisition of Toulouse, were among the victims of that tribunal. They are
found in other parts of France, as also in Germany, where many of them suffered
death as heretics; and it appears to have been in the beginning of this time
that they made their way in considerable numbers into the valleys of Piedmont,
where fanciful history and impossible etymology represent them as having
lived even from the time of the apostles. In the years 1402-3, the famous
Spanish Dominican Vincent Ferrer was employed in that region for the conversion
of the sectaries, among whom he says that there were Cathari as
well as Waldenses; but, although his eloquence is said to have been accompanied
by miraculous circumstances—that the most distant persons in his audience heard
him as distinctly as the nearest, and that his preaching was understood by all,
although they might be ignorant of the language in which he spoke—its force
was not sufficient to root out the opinion against which it was directed. There
were much persecution of the Waldenses in Northern Italy during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, and in consequence of this many fled to Apulia and
Calabria, where their settlements continued to exist, until in 1560 they were
exterminated by a massacre which is one of the blackest crimes connected with
the suppression of the reformation in Italy.
BEGHARDS
Other parties of separatists from the church were
spoken of under the general name of beghards, which in Italy, Spain, and
southern France, commonly designated fraticelli,
but in Germany and Flanders the sectaries of the “Free Spirit”. Of these
Cologne was the chief seat, and many of them suffered there and in other towns
of the Rhine country. The secret progress of their pantheistic and immoral
doctrines was favoured by the difficulty of distinguishing between such beghards and
the harmless devotees who were confounded with them under a common name; while
the more dangerous class studied to conceal their peculiarities by affecting a
likeness in dress and manners to those beghards and beguines whom the
popes by repeated declarations endeavoured to preserve from molestation. It is,
indeed, probable that societies of beghards which were originally
orthodox became gradually corrupted by the secret introduction of unsound
opinions. The name of Lollards, which eventually marked the followers of
Wyclif, is found as early as 1309, when it seems to be applied to the sect of the
Free Spirit in Holland and Brabant, and was used indifferently with that
of beghard. Another name given to sectaries of
the same kind was that of turlupins; those who
were so styled in the Isle of France, about the year 1372, are described as
having held that nothing which is natural is matter for shame; and a woman of
the sect, Mary of Valenciennes, is spoken of by Gerson as having written a
book “with almost infinite subtlety” on the text, “Have charity, and do what
thou wilt.”
The popes laboured to secure the co-operation of the
secular power for the suppression of heresy. We have seen how, in a former age,
the emperor Frederick II attempted to rescue his own reputation for orthodoxy
by the severity of his laws and proceedings against sectaries; and in other
cases the opposite motive of a desire to stand well with the papacy led to a
course which was practically the same. Thus the emperor Charles IV, in the code
which has from him the name of Carolina, ordered that obstinate heretics should
be made over by the secular to the ecclesiastical authorities, in order to be
burnt, and that receivers of heretics should forfeit their property; but the
opposition of the Bohemians was so decided that these severe laws could not be
put into execution.
The inquisition was now extended in Germany, France,
Spain, Poland, and other countries. Boniface VIII had endeavoured to regulate
its proceedings, and Clement V, at the council of Vienne, found himself
obliged to admit that in many cases the inquisitors had given just cause of
complaint. He therefore decreed that the bishops should be associated with
these, who had until then been independent of the episcopal power; and while
each of the orders was authorized to proceed in some respects without reference
to the other, the cooperation of both bishops and inquisitors was in some
cases required. In some countries, such as England, however, the inquisition
was never able to establish itself; and elsewhere, as in the south of France,
it found itself hampered by the unwillingness of the secular authorities to
assist, by their interference with its sentences, or even by their direct
opposition. To the questions of heresy which had engaged the labours of the
inquisitors was added in Germany the duty of inquiring into the practice of
witchcraft. The belief and the fear of this unhallowed art became rife, and
secular authorities, as well as those of the church, concerned themselves with
discovering and punishing those who were supposed to be guilty of it. Multitudes
of wretches suffered in consequence—many of them after having confessed the
commission of monstrous and impossible crimes. One writer reckons the
number of sorcerers who were burnt within a century and a half at 30,000, or
more, and believes that but for this wholesome severity the entire world would
have been ruined by magical practices.
The practice of associating for penitential flagellation,
which had been suppressed in the thirteenth century on account of the
fanatical excesses connected with it, was still revived from time to
time. In seasons of public calamity, when trust in the ordinary resources of
the church was shaken, this exercise was again and again taken up by multitudes
as a more powerful means of propitiating the wrath of heaven. The appearance of
a flagellant party after the ravages of the Black Death, and the condemnation
of flagellancy by Clement VI, have been
already related. One Conrad Schmidt, a Thuringian, on finding the principle of
flagellation thus discountenanced by the church, developed it into a system
hostile both to the clergy and to their doctrines. He taught that flagellation
was a baptism of blood; that it superseded the sacraments and other rites of
the church, which were said to be ineffectual on account of the vices of the
clergy; that salvation was possible for such persons only as should flog
themselves at least on every Friday at the hour of the Saviour’s passion; that
this was the new faith which saved all, whereas the old faith of the gospel
condemned all; that the Saviour, toy changing water into wine, had signified
that in the last days the baptism of water was to be superseded by the baptism
of blood. The party claimed to represent the flagellants of sixty years before,
from which time it was that they supposed the ministry and sacraments of the
church to have lost their power. They had wild prophetical fancies—that Conrad
Schmidt himself and one of his associates, who was burnt as a heretic, were
Enoch and Elijah—the souls of those ancient saints having been infused into
them at their birth; and that at the last day, which was fixed for the year
1364, Schmidt was to be the judge of the quick and the dead. With these and
other strange opinions were combined the principles of dissimulation and
evasion which are imputed to many kinds of sectaries; the flagellants were
confounded with other parties under the general name of beghards; and
their rule required them to conform outwardly to the church, and to punish
themselves by stripes in secret for this compliance. In 1372
Gregory XI instructed an inquisitor in Germany that these people should be
treated as heretics on account of their denial of the sacraments; and this
order was carried out at various times by burning many of them. Perhaps the
most remarkable persecution was that of 1414, when about ninety of Schmidt’s
adherents were burnt at Sangershausen in
Thuringia, and many others in other German towns.
In Italy also the same fanaticism appeared from time
to time. And in 1399 a great movement—excited by two priests who are variously
described as having come from Spain, from Provence, and from Scotland—began in
Lombardy, whence it proceeded southwards to Florence, Rome, and Naples. The
penitents professed to have received a revelation from the blessed Virgin that
her Divine Son’s wrath was provoked by the sins of mankind. They were dressed
in white, and the numbers of their various companies, in which persons of all
ranks were mixed, are reckoned at from 10,000 to 40,000. They chanted the
Stabat Mater with vehement supplications for mercy; they declined all
sustenance except bread and water, fasted much, and refused to make use of beds
during the time of their pilgrimage. When one company had finished its
devotions at Rome, it was succeeded by another. Multitudes were drawn to join
the penitents; there was a profuse show of contrition in confessing of sins,
enemies were reconciled, and in other ways there was much amendment of life.
But Boniface IX condemned the movement as being opposed to the discipline of
the church; and its good effects soon passed away. About the same time there
was a fresh outbreak of flagellation in Flanders, and Henry IV of England
issued a proclamation by which it was ordered that, if any of the party should
arrive in an English port, they should not be suffered to land.
A few years later, St. Vincent Ferrer appeared as the
leader of a party of flagellants; and from the fact of his countenancing such a
movement we may infer that it was free from the fanatical excesses, and from
the enmity to the clergy, which had marked the flagellants of earlier days. He
seems, however, to have been convinced by the arguments of Gerson, and he wrote
to the council of Constance that he submitted to the authority of that assembly
in all things, and abandoned the manner of devotion which had been called in
question.
Very different in character from these wilder movements
was the mysticism which now appeared as prevailing widely in Germany. The
origin and growth of this may be in no small degree referred to the peculiar
troubles of the time. The clergy sank in estimation, and hence many persons of
a religious disposition, as well as others, became inclined to disparage the
outward forms of religion. The abuse of the sentence of interdict, which was
now often pronounced for reasons merely political—a sentence which involved
multitudes of innocent persons in suffering for the alleged guilt of their
superiors, and which, by denying the ordinary means of grace, drove the
awakened cravings of the soul to seek for sustenance elsewhere—contributed
greatly to foster the mystic tendency. And the expectation that the end of all
things would speedily come, the eager study of such prophecies as those of St.
Hildegard and abbot Joachim, the readiness to believe in visions and new
revelations, affected the mind in a similar way.
Some of these mystics styled themselves “Friends of
God”—a name derived from the Saviour’s words “Henceforth I call you not
servants; but I have called you friends.” They abounded chiefly on the upper
Rhine, especially at Basel and Strasburg; but they had also correspondence with
brethren in Switzerland, Italy, and Hungary, at Cologne, and in the Low Countries.
It has been disputed whether the name designated an organised society,
connected with the Waldenses or other sectaries who were avowedly separated from
the church; but this idea seems to be now abandoned. The “friends of God ” were
not a sect, although liable to be mistaken for sectaries, and involved by the
vulgar in the general odium of beghardism. The
visions and revelations on which they relied are foreign to the character of
the Waldensian system. While judging the clergy freely, they did not
venture to question the doctrine of the church. They were devoted to the
blessed Virgin, they reverenced saints and relics, they held the current belief
in purgatory. Their love of symbolism enabled them to reconcile the ordinary
faith and worship with the peculiarities of their own system, which they
regarded as additional, but not contradictory, to that of the church.
In this society were included monks and clergy,
nobles, merchants, men and women of all classes, even down to tillers of the
soil. They had priests to administer the Eucharist, but in other respects they
did not attach importance to ordination. Thus Nicolas of Basel, a layman, who
had founded the party, was regarded as its chief, and as its most enlightened
member; and one of its characteristics was the principle of submission to certain
men whose superior sanctity had raised them to the highest class, and invested
them with oracular authority, “as in God’s stead”. The “friends,” while
professing to be purely scriptural, interpreted the Scriptures allegorically
and mystically, and some parts of their system were concealed from the lower
grades of believers by being disguised in a symbolical form. They denounced the
subtleties and the dryness of scholasticism, and regarded the mixture of
philosophy with religion as pharisaical. Their
preachers were distinguished by the warmth, the earnestness, and the practical
nature of their discourses; instead of contenting themselves, as was then
common, with warning against the grossest sins by the fear of hell, they rather
dwelt on the blessedness of heaven, and exhorted to the perfection of the
Christian life, and to union with God. They taught that these objects were to
be sought by entire resignation to the Divine will; if such resignation were
attained, men would pray neither for heaven nor for deliverance from hell, but
for God Himself alone. Hence they did not, like the monks, break away from
their earthly ties, but regarded these as the providential conditions under
which their work was to be carried on; and although some of them gave
themselves to contemplation, the principle of resignation to God’s will became
an incentive to action for others, whom it taught to regard themselves as
instruments for the fulfilment of that will. It was held that the highest reach
of love was to prefer the salvation of another to our own.
On the same principle of resignation, it was taught
that all temptations ought to be welcomed; even sensual temptations were to be
regarded as a check on spiritual pride, and to be without temptation was a
token of being forsaken by God. All bodily discipline was represented as
designed for spiritual purposes, and as marking a stage after passing through
which such things would not be necessary for the believer. But sufferings of
God’s sending were always to be gladly accepted.
NICOLAS OF BASEL
The history of Nicolas, the founder of this remarkable
society, is for the most part very obscure. His very name is discoverable by
inference only, and in his accounts of himself there is so large a mixture of
visionary, marvellous, and allegorical matter, that it is impossible to determine
how much is intended to be accepted as literal truth. He was born about 1308,
the son of a merchant, to whose business he succeeded; but the companionship of
a young knight induced him to withdraw from trade, and for a time to engage in
the amusements of the world. On the eve of the day appointed for his marriage,
he prayed for direction before a crucifix; when it seemed to him that the
figure inclined towards him, and, in obedience to this sign, he resolved to
give up the world and to follow the Saviour. He did not, however, renounce his
wealth, but keeping it in his own hands he devoted it to religious purposes. He
appears to have had at first four associates, and eventually the number of
those admitted to the highest grade was thirteen. From Basel the headquarters
of the party were removed in 1374-5 to a mountain within the Austrian-Swiss
territory, where he built a house on a site which is said to have been
miraculously indicated by a vision, and by the leading of a dog; and thence
Nicolas kept up, by means of correspondence and of secret intelligencers, a
watchful superintendence over his widely-spread connection. “The great friend
of God in the Hill-country,” as he was styled, threw around himself an air of
mystery; and when he went forth to work on persons who had been marked out as
fit subjects for his influence, he was able, by means of his private
information, to astonish and awe them by a knowledge of their concerns which
they readily believed to be supernatural. In 1377, when the return of Gregory
XI from Avignon appeared to open prospects of reform, Nicolas and one of his
brethren repaired to Rome, and sought an interview with the pope, whom they
urged to heal the evils of the church. On Gregory’s professing himself unequal
to such a work, Nicolas threatened him with death within a year, and foretold
the coming schism; and his predictions were, of course, fulfilled. At length
Nicolas, after many years of labour, was burnt as a beghard at
Vienna, probably in the year 1393.
ECKART
It was from the Dominican brotherhood that most of the
great teachers of mysticism came forth. The first of them, Henry Eckart, became
provincial of the order for Saxony in 1304, and lived at Cologne. With Eckart,
the great object of endeavour is represented to be the union and identification
of the soul with God, whom he speaks of as the only being. By contemplation, he
says, the divine part of the soul may become one with God, and son to Him; the
soul is transformed into God even as the eucharistic bread and wine are changed
into the body and blood of the Saviour. The word which Eckart used to denote
the desire of this union was poverty, by which was expressed the fact that man
has nothing of his own in order to attain to the pure knowledge of God, all joy
and fear, all confidence and hope, must be laid aside; for all these are of the
creature, and are hindrances to union. Eckart’s mysticism was largely indebted
to the works of the pretended Dionysius the Areopagite, and had much in common
with Neoplatonism. His language often runs into manifest pantheism; but,
although in this respect he bears a likeness to the sectaries of the Free
Spirit, he was in no way connected with them, but differed essentially from
them in his ardent desire for the salvation of the soul, and in his freedom
from the impurity which stained their teaching. There was, however enough to
draw on him the suspicion of heterodoxy; and, after a previous examination by
the authorities of his order in 1324, the matter was taken up by the archbishop
of Cologne, who in 1327 censured twenty-eight propositions extracted from his
writings. These Eckart retracted in so far as they might be contrary to the
doctrine of the church; but a more special retractation was required, and
against this demand he appealed to the pope. By this step he appears to have
secured himself from further trouble, until his death in 1329; but in that same
year he was condemned by John XXII, as having held twenty-eight erroneous
propositions. It would seem, however, that the Dominicans exerted themselves in
favour of his memory; for although the pope, in the following year, by the bull
‘In agro Dominico’, renewed his censure of
the propositions, it may be supposed that by omitting to connect the name of
Eckart with them, he intended (in so far as retractation was possible for a
pope) to withdraw the charge against him.
TAULER
Notwithstanding the suspicions which had been cast on
Eckart’s orthodoxy, his writings continued to be the chief study of the later
mystics, among whom John Tauler was the most famous. Tauler was
born at Strasburg in 1294, and at the age of eighteen entered the Dominican
order. He studied for some time at Paris, although it is not known whether it
was to that university that he owed his degree of doctor in theology; and in
the course of his studies he showed a preference for the mystical and spiritual
writers—the pseudo-Dionysius, the school of St. Bernard, and, above all, St.
Augustine—over the scholastic authors who were then of greatest authority. On
returning to his native city he fell under the influence of Eckart and other
mystics, which was then powerful at Strasburg; yet, unlike Eckart, he was
inclined rather to practical work than to speculation, and he often denounces
the mistaken contemplativeness and the passive quietism which
he regarded as perversions of the true mysticism; for in this he held that love
for man ought to go hand-in-hand with the aspiration after union with God.
Strasburg was then agitated by the differences between
the pope and the emperor Lewis, so that, while the bishop adhered to the pope,
the citizens, by siding with the emperor, incurred the sentence of interdict.
In consequence of this, the clergy were divided: while some shut up their
churches, others, in defiance of the interdict, deemed it their duty to
continue their pastoral labours. In such circumstances it was natural that persons
of all classes should be drawn together by the desire of finding some satisfaction
for their spiritual needs, to which the church appeared to deny the means of
support; and thus the association of the “friends of God” became greatly
increased in numbers. Among the clergy who remained at their posts was Tauler,
although the brethren of his order in general left the town. The circumstances
of the time gave him prominence; he became famous as a preacher, and in that
character he extended his labours on the one side to Basel (where, as at
Strasburg, the imperialist citizens had been laid under an interdict by the
bishop), and on the other side to Cologne; the fame of his eloquence even made
its way across the Alps into Italy.
In 1346 he was visited by a layman, who had listened
to several of his sermons and expressed a wish to confess to him. Tauler heard
the confession, and administered the sacrament of the altar to the stranger,
who afterwards visited him again, and requested him to preach on the manner of
attaining the highest perfection which is possible in this life. Tauler complied,
although reluctantly, and addressed to a crowded audience an earnest exhortation
to renunciation of self and of self-will. Once more the layman, who had taken
notes of the sermon, appeared, and told Tauler that he had come a
distance of thirty miles, not so much to hear him as to give him advice; that
he, the famous preacher, who had already reached his fiftieth year, was still
but a man of books, a mere Pharisee. Tauler, although startled and shocked
by such words, warmly thanked his monitor for having been the first to tell him
of his faults, and entreated his further counsel. The stranger prescribed some
ascetic exercises; he himself, he said, had gone through such things, but had
now outgrown them, so as to need them no longer; and he further charged Tauler to
abstain for two years from preaching, from hearing confessions, and from study,
shutting himself up in the seclusion of his cell. Submission to the dictates of
those who were supposed to possess spiritual experience was, as we have seen, a
characteristic of the “friends of God”, and Tauler obeyed. The
monitor was no other than Nicolas of Basel, who, in his watchful observation of
all who might be supposed likely to sympathize with him, had marked Tauler during
a visit which the preacher had lately made to Basel, and had undertaken the
journey to Strasburg for the purpose of gaining him. Tauler struggled
through the prescribed exercises, being upheld by the counsels of Nicolas, and
even assisted by his money, while his former friends mocked at him for the
change which had taken place; but when, at the end of the two years, he
attempted to resume his preaching, and his fame had drawn together a great
audience, his utterance was choked by his feelings; he burst into tears, and
found himself unable to proceed. It was supposed that he had lost his senses,
and his superiors forbade him the pulpit. Nicolas of Basel, on being consulted,
told him that perhaps he had not yet overcome his love of self, and advised him
to remain silent for some time longer; after which, by the direction of
Nicolas, Tauler asked and obtained leave to preach in Latin before
the brethren of his order. In this he acquitted himself so as to raise general
admiration, and the late prohibition was taken off. He resumed his public
preaching, which was now marked by a warmth and a depth unknown in his earlier
time : such was the effect of his first sermon that twelve persons were struck
down as if dead. He strenuously urged reformation, nor did he spare the faults
of the clergy, so that with them he became unpopular, and he and his associates
were stigmatized as beghards. In addition to labouring as a
preacher, Tauler wrote some German tracts, of which the most
celebrated is one on ‘The Imitation of the Saviour’s Life of Poverty’; and he
acted as the spiritual director of many persons—among whom Rulman Merswin, a wealthy
retired merchant, and author of a book entitled ‘The Nine Rocks’ is especially
mentioned.
The great pestilence of 1348 raged with such violence
at Strasburg that 16,000 persons died in the city alone. The interdict was
still in force, and the clergy in general, professedly out of obedience to it,
refrained from the exercise of their ministry. In these circumstances, Tauler and
a few others, among whom was Ludolf of Saxony, prior of the
Carthusian convent, stepped forward, arguing that it was contrary to Scripture
and to reason that, for the political offence of one man, multitudes of innocent
persons should be excluded from the means of grace and from the benefit of the
Redeemer’s sufferings. They tended the sick, aided them with spiritual counsel,
administered the last consolations of religion, and buried the dead with the
offices of the church. But by these and other things the bishop of Strasburg
was offended, so that when Charles IV visited the city, and reconciliation
with the church was offered to the inhabitants, Tauler was required,
as a suspected beghard, to give an account of
his faith before the emperor. The result is not recorded; but it was probably
in consequence of this that he withdrew to Cologne, where he laboured zealously
to correct the prevailing habits of luxury, and to counteract the teaching of
the professors of the Free Spirit. The time of his return to Strasburg is
unknown; but he was there in 1361, when, feeling the approach of death, he
invited Nicolas of Basel to visit him. In compliance with this request, Nicolas
repaired to Strasburg, and during an illness of many weeks Tauler was
sustained by the comfort of intercourse with the man whose influence had
determined the course of his maturer spiritual life, and whom he now
desired to draw up a narrative of their early intercourse, from notes
which Tauler had made long before. Tauler died on the 16th
of June 1361, in a garden-house of the convent in which his sister was a nun,
and he has been blamed by a severe mystic for the weakness of indulging his
human affections by allowing himself her society.
Tauler was styled by his admirers the Illuminated
(or Enlightened) Doctor. His sermons, which are the most important part of his
remaining works, are characterized by deep earnestness and by an evangelical
tone which, as Luther mentions, was symbolized by his monument, on which he was
represented as pointing to the Lamb of God. He taught that outward austerities
were to be regarded not for their own sake, but as a discipline for beginners,
and would fall away of themselves from the believer in proportion as his faith
became matured; that without a right heart, penance, confession, absolution,
with all the intercessions of the blessed Virgin and the saints, are of no
avail. While he would have all the laws of the church observed, he attaches no
importance to the outward works, and even says that the believer must sometimes
appear to break the laws—a principle which was, of course, liable to be
perverted, as it was by the sectaries of the Free Spirit. And, while he regards
the holy Eucharist as the chief means of union between the believer and his
Lord, he teaches that in this also the inward feeling must be regarded rather
than the outward form. Although fond of recondite meanings, he is free from all
parade of learning; in one sermon, he announces his intention of giving up the
practice of using Latin quotations, except in discourses addressed to learned
hearers. The writings of Tauler had much influence on the mind of
Luther, who warmly expressed his obligations to them. It has been said by
Herder, that to read two of Tauler’s sermons is to read them all;yet, as has been well observed, even the monotony which
unquestionably runs throughout them may have tended in practice to deepen the
impression of his teaching.
SUSO
Another famous mystic, Henry von Berg, who is more
generally known by the name of Suso, was a Dominican of Constance, and
died in 1365, in his seventieth year. In an autobiography, which is probably in
part imaginary, he tells us that from the age of eighteen to that of forty he
disciplined himself by strict observances of devotion, by severe ascetic
exercises, and even by tortures, such as that of wearing under his dress a
wooden cross studded with thirty nails, of which the points were turned towards
his flesh. At length, when he had reduced himself by this treatment to such a
degree that a continuance of it must have been fatal, he was told by an angel
that he had studied long enough in the lower school, and was to be transferred
to the higher, in which his sufferings would not be of his own infliction, but
would come on him plentifully from men and devils. The object of all he
represents as being an entire abandonment and resignation of self to the Divine
will, in imitation of the Saviour’s example. On expressing a wish to set to
work, he is told that the less one does, the more hath he really done—that men
ought not to act for themselves, but to cast themselves wholly on God’s
promises. There are stories not only of visions, but of miracles. The book was
drawn up by Suso for the instruction of a “spiritual daughter”, whom
he warns that she is soon to die; and he relates that, after her death, he had
a vision of her as “passing gloriously into the pure Divinity.” The principle
of self-abandonment is again inculcated in Suso’s book ‘Of the
Eternal Wisdom’, where the Saviour is introduced as conversing with His
servant, and recounting the bodily and spiritual sufferings of His
passion. Suso is without the manly strength of Tauler, and is
distinguished chiefly by the poetical and figurative tone of his writings.
RUYSBROEK
The mystically speculative tendency of Eckart revived
in the anonymous author of the ‘German Theology’, which is supposed to be a
work of this time, and in John Ruysbroek, who
was distinguished by the title of Ecstatic Doctor. Ruysbroek, who is characterized by John of Trittenheim as “a man reputed to be devout, but of
little learning’, had been a secular priest at Brussels until the age of sixty,
when he withdrew to the monastery of Grontal, of
which he became prior. He professed that he never wrote a word except by
inspiration of the Holy Spirit and in the especial presence of the Divine
Trinity; and it is related that, when he found the influence of divine grace
strong on him, he used to retire to write in the depths of a wood—where his
canons, uneasy at his long absence, once found him surrounded by a supernatural
light, imperfectly conscious, but “inebriated by the glow of the divine
sweetness.” Ruysbroek died in 1381,
at the age of eighty-eight. His works were written in Flemish, but were
translated into Latin. Gerson, who, as a nominalist, was alarmed by their
mystic realism, denounced them as pantheistic, and on this account became
involved in a controversy with John of Schonhofen,
a canon of Grontal, who, among other things,
charged him with having too much relied on the Latin translation.
Gerson himself endeavoured to unite mysticism with
scholasticism, so as to exclude the dangers of unrestrained imagination and
fanaticism; and to him has been attributed by some writers the authorship of
the most celebrated devotional book of the middle ages— the treatise ‘Of
the Imitation of Christ’. But this supposition appears rather to have been
suggested by the patriotic desire of French writers to claim for one of their
own countrymen a work so justly admired than to rest on any solid basis of
facts. And the slightly different name of John Gerson, which has been put
forward by other writers on the ground of inscriptions in some manuscript
copies of the book, would seem to be really nothing more than a mistake for
that of the famous chancellor of Paris. The popular opinion, which ascribes the
‘Imitation’ to Thomas Hamerken of Kempten,
a canon regular of Zwoll, who died in 1471,
appears, therefore, to be the most probable. The tone of the ‘Imitation’ is
strongly mystical, yet no less practical—setting forth religious practice as
the way to insight into divine things. Thoroughly monastic in spirit, it has
the characteristic excellences and defects of monastic piety; while it is full
of wise guidance for the soul in the ways of humility, purity, and
self-renunciation, the religion which it inculcates is too exclusively directed
towards the perfecting of the individual in himself, too little solicitous for
his relations with the brotherhood of mankind. Its conception of the way of
life is too limited, and does not enough regard the endless variety of
circumstances in which men are placed, with the task before them of working out
their salvation under the conditions assigned to them by the divine providence.
Yet the vast and unequalled popularity of the book has not been confined to
those who would sympathize with its monastic peculiarities, but has extended to
multitudes of persons remote in feeling and in belief from all that is
specially distinctive of medieval religion.
The teaching of the mystics, by leading men from a
reliance on outward observances to an inward spiritual life, prepared the way
for the Reformation, and Luther speaks with warm admiration of Tauler and
of the German Theology. But between the two systems there was the important
difference, that whereas the mystics sought after immediate union with the
Saviour through conformity to him in humility and spiritual poverty, the
characteristic doctrine of Luther was that of free justification by faith,
while his system insisted on the necessity of those sacramental means which the
mystics regarded as comparatively unimportant.
