Ruysbroeck and the Mystics: with selections from RuysbroeckMaeterlinck, Maurice
Religion
Ruysbroeck and the Mystics: with selections from Ruysbroeck
Maeterlinck, Maurice
Mysticism; Ruusbroec, Jan van, 1293-1381
I should have liked to translate many other passages from this
remarkable volume; but I shall close with a translation of the chapter
entitled “Of the gift of sweet-savoured wisdom”:--
“The seventh divine gift is that of sweet-savoured wisdom. It is
granted on the highest peak of introversion, and it penetrates the
intelligence and the will according as they are turned towards the
absolute. This savour is without source and without measure, and it
flows from within outwards, and drinks in the body and the soul (in
proportion to their respective capacity for its reception) even to
the inmost sense--that is to say, even to a physical sensation. The
other senses, like sight and hearing, take their pleasure outside, in
the marvels which God has created for His own glory and for the needs
of men. This incomprehensible savour, above the mind and in the vast
breadth of the soul, is without measure, and it is the Holy Spirit,
the incomprehensible love of God. In lower regions than the spirit,
sensation is limited. But as its powers are inherent, they overwhelm
everything. Now, the eternal Father has adorned the contemplative
spirit with joy in unity, and with active and passive comprehension
in which the self is lost, and the spirit thus becomes the throne
and the rest of God; and the Son, the eternal Truth, has adorned the
contemplative intelligence with His own brightness, so that it may
behold the face of joy. And now the Holy Spirit desires to adorn the
contemplative will, and the inherent unity of its powers, so that the
soul may taste, know, and feel how great God is. This savour is so vast
that the soul imagines that heaven, earth, and all that is in them must
dissolve and sink in nothingness before its unbounded sweetness. These
delights are above and beneath, within and without, and have entirely
enveloped and saturated the kingdom of the soul. Then the intellect
beholds the pure source from which all these delights flow forth.
This awakes the attention of the enlightened reason. It knows well,
however, that it is incapable of knowing these unimaginable delights,
for it observes by means of a created light, while this joy is entirely
without measure. Therefore the reason fails in its attention; but the
intellect, which is transformed by this illimitable splendour, beholds
without ceasing the incomprehensible joy of beatitude.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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