Hours with the Mystics: A Contribution to the History of Religious OpinionVaughan, Robert Alfred
Religion
Hours with the Mystics: A Contribution to the History of Religious Opinion
Vaughan, Robert Alfred
Mysticism -- History
Engelhardt, pp. 224-228.—Eckart, like Hegel, would seem to have left
behind him a right-hand and a left-hand party,—admirers like Suso and
Tauler, who dropped his extreme points and held by such saving clauses
as they found; and headstrong spirits, ripe for anarchy, like these
New-Lights or High-Fliers, the representatives of mysticism run to
seed. Ruysbroek’s classification of them is somewhat artificial;
fanaticism does not distribute itself theologically. In the treatise
entitled _Spiegel der Seligkeit_, § 16, he describes them generally as
follows:—‘Ander quade duulische menschen vint men, die segghen dat si
selue Cristus sijn of dat si god sijn, ende dat haer hant hemel ende
erde ghemaect heest, ende dat an haer hant hanghet hemel ende erde
ende alle dinc, ende dat si verheuen sijn boven alle die sacramenten
der heiligher kerken, ende dat si der niet en behoeuen noch si en
willen der ooc niet.’ He represents their claim to identity with God
as leading to a total moral indifference (§ 17):—‘Ende sulke wanen god
sijn, ende si en achten gheen dinc goet noch quaet, in dien dat si hem
ontbeelden connen ende in bloter ledicheit haer eighen wesen vinden
ende besitten moghen.’ Their idea of the consummation of all things
savours of the Parisian heresy—the offspring of John Scotus,
popularised by David of Dinant and his followers. The final
restitution is to consist in the resolution of all creatures into the
Divine Substance:—‘So spreken si voort dat in den lesten daghe des
ordels enghele ende duuele, goede ende quade, dese sullen alle werden
_een eenvoudighe substancie der godheit_ ... ende na dan, spreken si
voort, en sal god bekennen noch minnen hem seluen noch ghene
creature’—(§ 16).
Footnote 152:
Engelhardt, pp. 326-336.—Good Ruysbroek was fully entitled to the
encomium placed in the mouth of Tauler. He himself, like Bernard,
would frequently perform the meanest offices of the cloister. The
happy spirit of brotherhood which prevailed among the canons of
Grünthal made a deep impression on that laborious practical reformer,
Gerard Groot, when, in 1378, he visited the aged prior. What he then
saw was not without its influence in the formation of that community
with which his name is associated—the Brethren of the Common Life.—See
Ullmann, _Reformatoren vor der Reformation_, vol. ii.
Footnote 153:
Engelhardt, p. 330.—Ruysbroek inveighs with much detail against the
vanities of female dress—as to those hair-pads, sticking up like great
horns, they are just so many ‘devil’s nests.’
Footnote 154:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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