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THE ADORNMENT OF THE SPIRITUAL
MARRIAGE (cont) |
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by Blessed John of Rusybroeck |
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THE SECOND BOOK |
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57. Of the Essential Meeting with God without
Means in the Nakedness of our Nature |
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Now understand and mark this well. The unity of our spirit has two
conditions: it is essential, and it is active. You must know that
the spirit, according to its essence, receives the coming of
Christ in the nakedness of its nature, without means and without
interruption. For the being and the life which we are in God, in
our Eternal Image, and which we have within ourselves according to
our essence, this is without means and indivisible. And this is
why the spirit, in its inmost and highest part, that is in its
naked nature, receives without interruption the impress of its
Eternal Archetype, and the Divine Brightness; and is an eternal
dwelling-place of God in which God dwells as an eternal Presence,
and which He visits perpetually, with new comings and with new
instreamings of the ever-renewed brightness of His eternal birth.
For where He comes, there He is; and where He is, there He comes.
And where He has never been, thereto He shall never come; for
neither chance nor change are in Him. And everything in which He
is, is in Him; for He never goes out of Himself. And this is why
the spirit in its essence possesses God in the nakedness of its
nature, as God does the spirit: for it lives in God and God in it.
And it is able, in its highest part, to receive, without
intermediary, the Brightness of God, and all that God can fulfil.
And by means of the brightness of its Eternal Archetype, which
shines in it essentially and personally, the spirit plunges itself
and loses itself, as regards the highest part of its life,[56] in
the Divine Being, and there abidingly possesses its eternal
blessedness; and it flows forth again, through the eternal birth
of the Son, together with all the other creatures, and is set in
its created being by the free will of the Holy Trinity. And here
it is like unto the image of the most high Trinity in Unity, in
which it has been made. And, in its created being, it incessantly
receives the impress of its Eternal Archetype, like a flawless
mirror, in which the image remains steadfast, and in which the
reflection is renewed without interruption by its ever-new
reception in new light. This essential union of our spirit with
God does not exist in itself, but it dwells in God, and it flows
forth from God, and it depends upon God, and it returns to God as
to its Eternal Origin.[57] And in this wise it has never been, nor
ever shall be, separated from God; for this union is within us by
our naked nature, and, were this nature to be separated from God,
it would fall into pure nothingness. And this union is above time
and space, and is always and incessantly active according to the
way of God. But our nature, forasmuch as it is indeed like unto
God but in itself is creature. receives the impress of its Eternal
Image passively. This is that nobleness which we possess by nature
in the essential unity of our spirit, where it is united with God
according to nature. This neither makes us holy nor blessed, for
all men, whether good or evil, possess it within themselves; but
it is certainly the first cause of all holiness and all
blessedness. This is the meeting and the union between God and our
spirit in the nakedness of our nature.
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58. Showing how one is like unto God through Grace
and unlike unto God through Mortal Sin |
Now consider this thought earnestly; for if you understand well
that which I will now tell you, and that which I have told you,
you will have understood all the Divine truth which any creature
can teach you, and far more besides. Otherwise does our spirit
keep itself in that same unity when it is conceived as acting or
working: for then it exists in itself as in its created and
personal being. This is the source of the higher powers, and here
there are beginning and end of all the creaturely works which are
worked in a creaturely way, both in nature and above nature. Yet
here the unity does not work forasmuch as it is unity; but all the
powers of the soul, in what way soever they work, derive their
strength and their power from their proper source, that is, from
the unity of the spirit, where it dwells in its personal being.
In this unity, the spirit must always either be like unto God
through grace and virtue, or unlike unto God through mortal sin.
For, that man has been made after the likeness of God, means that
he has been created in the grace of God; the which grace is a
God-formed light, which shines through us and makes us like to
God; and without this light, which makes us God-like, we cannot be
united with God supernaturally, even though we cannot lose the
image of God nor our natural unity with Him[58]. If we lose the
likeness, that is, the grace of God, we are damned. And therefore,
whenever God finds within us some capacity for the reception of
His grace, it is His pleasure and His free goodness to make us
through His gifts, full of life, and like unto Him. This always
happens whenever we turn to Him with our whole will; for at that
very moment, Christ comes to us and in us, both with means and
without means, that is, with the virtues and above the virtues.
And He impresses His image and His likeness in us, namely Himself
and His gifts: and He redeems us from sin, and makes us free and
like unto Himself. And in that same working, through which God
redeems us from sins, and makes us free and like unto Him through
charity, the spirit immerses itself in fruitive love[59]. And here
there take place a meeting and a union which are without means and
above nature, and wherein our highest blessedness consists.
Although all that He gives us from love and free goodness is
natural to God, for us, according to our condition, it is
accidental and supernatural. For before, we were strangers and
unlike unto God; and afterwards, becoming like Him, have received
union with God.
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59. Showing how one possesses |
This meeting and this union, which the loving spirit achieves in
God and possesses without means, must take place in the essential
intuition, deeply hidden from our understanding; unless it be an
effective understanding according to the way of simplicity[60]. In
the fruition of this unity we shall rest evermore, above ourselves
and above all things. From this unity, all gifts, both natural and
supernatural, flow forth, and yet the loving spirit rests in this
unity above all gifts; and here there is nothing but God, and the
spirit united with God without means. In this unity we are taken
possession of by the Holy Ghost, and we take possession of the
Holy Ghost and the Father and the Son, and the whole Divine
Nature: for God cannot be divided. And the fruitive tendency of
the spirit[61], which seeks rest in God above all likeness,
receives and possesses in a supernatural way, in its essential
being, all that the spirit ever received in a natural way. All
good men experience this; but how it is, this remains hidden from
them all their life long if they do not become inward and empty of
all creatures. In that very moment in which man turns away from
sin, he is received by God in the essential unity of his own
being, at the summit of his spirit, that he may rest in God, now
and evermore. And he also receives grace, and likeness unto God,
in the proper source of his powers, that he may evermore grow and
increase in new virtues. And as long as this likeness endures in
charity and in virtues, so long also endures the union in rest.
And this cannot be lost save only by mortal sin.
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60. Showing how we have need
of the grace of God, which makes us like unto God and leads us to
God without means |
Now all holiness and all blessedness lie in this: that the spirit
is led upwards, through likeness and by means of grace or glory,
to rest in the essential unity. For the grace of God is the way by
which we must always go, if we would enter into the naked essence
in which God gives Himself with all His riches without means. And
this is why the sinners and the damned spirits dwell in darkness;
for they lack the grace of God, which should enlighten them, and
lead them, and show them the way to the fruitive unity. Yet the
essential being of the spirit is so noble, that even the damned
cannot will their own annihilation. But sin builds up a barrier,
and gives rise to such darkness and such unlikeness between the
powers and the essence in which God lives, that the spirit cannot
be united with its proper essence; which would be its own and its
eternal rest, did sin not impede it. For whosoever lives without
sin, he lives in likeness unto God, and in grace, and God is his
own. And so we have need of grace, which casts out sin, and
prepares the way, and makes our whole life fruitful. And this is
why Christ always comes into us through means, that is, through
grace and multifarious gifts; and we too go out towards Him
through means, that is, through virtues and diverse practices. And
the more inward gifts He gives and the more deeply He stirs us,
the more inward and delightful are the workings of our spirit, as
you have already heard in all the ways which have been shown forth
before. And here there is a perpetual renewal; for God ever gives
new gifts, and our spirit ever turns inward in such wise as it is
invited and as is bestowed on it by God, and in that meeting it
always receives a higher renewal. And thus one grows continually
into a higher life. And this active meeting is altogether through
means; for the gifts of God and our virtues and the activity of
our spirit are the means. And these means are necessary for all
men and all spirits: for, without the mediation of God's grace and
a loving turning to Him in freedom, no creature shall ever be
saved.
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| 56. |
The word is "levendicheit," really meaning the
vital essence of the soul: that "life-giving life" which
Ruysbroeck, following St Bernard, regards as the link between
the soul's essence and the Divine Essence, and the vivid
source of our life in time. Thus for him the spiritual man is
a "levende mensche": more vividly alive than those in whom
this germ of Eternity has not been quickened. |
| 57. |
Thus Dionysius�
"Every essence, power, energy, condition, perception, reason,
conception, contact, knowledge and union�in a word, all things
existing�are from the Beautiful and Good, and in the Beautiful
and Good, and return towards the Beautiful and Good." (Divine
Names, cap. 4.) |
| 58. |
This is the scholastic doctrine of the lumen
gloriae. See Introduction, p. xxv. |
| 59. |
"Onsinct die gheest hem selven in
ghebrukeliker minnen"�the spirit, as regards its separate
consciousness, drowns and loses itself in the Eternal Love of
God. This immersion, self-mergence, or sinking of the spirit
into the One which is its home, is the "completing opposite"
of that other action of grace, which thrusts the self out with
its powers as a free and energetic instrument of the Divine
Will: thus perfecting the soul's dual likeness to God, in work
and in rest. Compare Ch. LXIII, "The Gift of Understanding." |
| 60. |
By the "effective understanding" Ruysbroeck
probably meant the faculty, sometimes called the "higher
reason" or "pure intellect" which the Victorine mystics
described as "beyond and beside reason," and whereby the mind
contemplates intellectibilia: the "invisible things which may
not be comprehended by human reason." Cf. Richard of St
Victor, Benjamin Major, bk. i. caps. 6 and 7. |
| 61. |
"Ghebrukelike gheneychtheit." This, one of
Ruysbroeck's favourite terms, is generally translated
"inclination"; but really includes the meaning�so
characteristic of his doctrine�of a perceptual willed and
active tending or drawing-nigh of the spirit to the enjoyment
and possession of God: and instinctive effort of the soul to
achieve its goal. It is the tendency immortalised in St
Augustine's saying, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our
heart can find no rest except in Thee." (Confessions, bk. i.
cap. 7.) |
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