This also was addressed to a nun, probably the same Poor Clare. It explains again the three degrees of the mystic life, but with special reference now to the cloister and the Blessed Eucharist. Some are in the purgative way: if they persevere in virtue and progress in perfection, they shall partake of the table, Ps. xxiii. 5, which is no other than the banquet of the Holy Eucharist. Ruysbroeck dwells on the virtues necessary for the worthy reception of the Sacrament, and narrates the manner of its institution by our Divine Lord at the Last Supper, showing what were the matter and form used by Christ. He discourses on the evidence of God’s love to be found in this mystery of the altar; and then refutes objections as to the manner of the Divine Presence, expressly teaching Transubstantiation. Those who approach the altar rails are divided by him into seven classes, and here the author shows a wondrous and intimate knowledge of the working of the human heart. The treatise closes with a description of the contemplative life.
The Seven Degrees of Spiritual Love
In a simile familiar to spiritual writers of all ages, Ruysbroeck compares life to a ladder, or stairway of seven steps, leading up to perfection and union with God. These stages are respectively: (1) Conformity with the holy will of God; (2) Voluntary poverty; (3) Purity of soul and chastity of body; (4) Humility, with her four daughters, obedience, gentleness, patience, and the forsaking of self-will; (5) The desire of the divine glory, involving three spiritual exercises, namely, acts of love and adoration, acts of supplication, and acts of thanksgiving; (6) The contemplative and perfect life, by which man finally attains the last stage of, (7) sublime ignorance. (Compare Walter Hilton’s “darksome lightness” in his Scale of Perfection.)
Of the Supreme Truth
This treatise was issued by way of explanation of some difficult passages in his first work, concerning especially the gift of counsel, and indeed as a kind of defence and apology of his whole mystic teaching. He protests that he has never admitted that the creature can be raised to a state of identity with God, and once more he explains his conception of the union of the soul with her Divine Spouse. There is a union common to all the just, brought about by the grace of God, with the forsaking of vice, the practice of virtue, and submission to the authority of the Church. Then there is a more intimate union, like unto that of fire and iron, which, when united, seem but one matter, though in fact they remain two distinct substances. Those who attain this love God and live in His presence, but as yet arrive not at a complete knowledge of His essence. After this again there is even a yet closer union, whereby the Eternal Father and man become one, not indeed with oneness of substantial unity, but in a oneness of love and bliss. It is evident that language here fails the holy author to express the sublimity of his concept and his experience; in his endeavour to show the intimacy of this last method of union he is driven to use expressions which, taken as they stand, have that pantheistic ring which it is his first object here to disclaim.
The Twelve Béguines
After the Tabernacle, this is the most lengthy of our Saint’s works, and it is of great importance as throwing considerable light on Ruysbroeck’s ideas and system. We are introduced to twelve Béguines discoursing together on the love of Jesus Christ, whence an easy transit to the real subject-matter of the tract, the contemplative life. To attain the state of contemplation, four conditions are required: a ray of divine light, producing illumination, whence, on the part of the soul, a looking at God, or speculation, passing into contemplation, and this stage again merging into a state of sublime, ecstatic love. There are four distinct acts or states of love, corresponding respectively to each of these stages. Ruysbroeck also shows here the action of the Holy Ghost in forming the soul to a more intimate knowledge of God.
The second part of the book then opens with a fresh order of ideas. Ruysbroeck divides mankind into good Christians and wicked men. Holiness consists of the union of the active and the contemplative life. There are, however, some who practise neither one nor the other and yet give themselves out as the most holy of all. Among these Ruysbroeck proceeds to distinguish four kinds of errors or heresies: (1) Errors against the Holy Ghost and His Grace; (2) Errors against God the Father and His power; (3) Errors against God the Son and His Sacred Humanity; and finally errors against God and all that makes up Christendom, namely, the Scriptures, the Church, and the Sacraments. On the other hand, the good Christian is one who loves God with all his heart and mind and soul and strength.
Blessed John then goes on to discourse of the Divine Nature in Unity and Trinity. He also discusses man in his material and in his spiritual nature. The spiritual part of man alone he says, can elevate him to the mystic life (of which once more the three ways are expounded), and alone also can show him the reasons wherefore God created the universe. The three ways of the mystic life are symbolised by the three heavens. The stars and the planets exercise an influence on terrestrial creatures, that is to say, upon our bodies, for God alone can touch the soul, leading it to good and restraining it from evil. Thence also Ruysbroeck describes the various temperaments of men by reference to the planets and their conjunction with the signs of the zodiac.
A chapter on our Divine Lord, held up as the Model Religious, serves as a transition to the third part, which is a treatise, largely symbolical, on the Passion of Christ, divided and subdivided according to the sequence of the Canonical Hours.