[Footnote 257: The indebtedness of the fourteenth century mystics to Eckhart is now generally recognised, at any rate in Germany; but before Pfeiffer's work his name had been allowed to fall into most undeserved obscurity. This was not the fault of his scholars, who, in spite of the Papal condemnation of his writings, speak of Eckhart with the utmost reverence, as the "great," "sublime," or "holy" master.] [Footnote 258: "Vir ut ferunt devotus sed parum litteratus," says the Abbé Trithême (_ap._ Gessner, _Biblioth._). "Rusbrochius cum idiota esset" (_Dyon. Carth._ Serm. i.). Compare Rousselot, _Les Mystiques Espagnols_, p. 493.] [Footnote 259: Maeterlinck, Ruysbroek's latest interpreter, is far too complimentary to the intellectual endowments of his fellow-countryman. "Ce moine possédait un des plus sages, des plus exacts, et des plus subtils organes philosophiques qui aient jamais existé." He thinks it marvellous that "il sait, à son insu, le platonisme de la Grèce, le soufisme de la Perse, le brahmanisme de I'Inde et le bouddhisme de Thibet," etc. In reality, Ruysbroek gets all his philosophy from Eckhart, and his manner of expounding it shows no abnormal acuteness. But Maeterlinck's essay in _Le Trésor des Humbles_ contains some good things--e.g. "Les verités mystiques ne peuvent ni vieillir ni mourir.... Une oeuvre ne vieillit qu'en proportion de son antimysticisme."] [Footnote 260: So Preger, probably rightly. Noack places his birth five years later. The chronology of the _Life_ is very loose.] [Footnote 261: The extreme asceticism which was practised by Suso, and (though to a less degree) by Tauler, is not enjoined by them as a necessary part of a holy life. "We are to kill our passions, not our flesh and blood," as Tauler says.] [Footnote 262: It would be very interesting to trace the influence of the chivalric idea on religious Mysticism. Chivalry, the worship of idealised womanhood, is itself a mystical cult, and its relation to religious Mysticism appears throughout the "Divine Comedy" and "Vita Nuova" (see especially the incomparable paragraph which concludes this latter), and in the sonnet of M. Angelo translated by Wordsworth, "No mortal object did these eyes behold," etc.] [Footnote 263: Nothing in the book is more touching than the scene when the baby, deserted by its mother, Suso's false accuser, is brought to him. Suso takes the child in his arms, and weeps over it with affectionate words, while the infant smiles up at him. In spite of the calumny which he knew was being spread wherever it would most injure him, he insists on paying for the child's maintenance, rather than leave it to die from neglect. The Italian mystic Scupoli, the author of a beautiful devotional work called the _Spiritual Combat_, was calumniated in a similar manner.]